CHARACTERISATION OF ITALIAN APRICOT GERMPLASM BY PHENOTYPIC AND MICROSATELLITE MARKERS

In order to characterise the apricot genetic resources in the Mediterranean region, within the context of a European Project (INCO-DC ERBIC18CT980310), our group explored around 100 accessions from the Italian germplasm, kept at the experimental station in Venturina (Livorno). The material was grafted on apricot seedling rootstocks with at least 3 replications per genotype. All the accessions were characterised by phenotypic and agronomic performances. As regards phenotypic markers, the 57 UPOV descriptors (TG 70/1, 1978) were studied for two consecutive years. Four highly polymorphic, simple-sequence repeat (SSR) markers or microsatellite loci were used for the fingerprinting of 56 accessions. Cluster analyses based on phenotypic-agronomic characters, on the one hand, and on the genotypes for the SSR loci, on the other, were carried out to visualise the similarity between accessions. The two dendrograms were compared and used to infer the probable origins and genetic relationships of several groups of varieties.