Articles
Plant certification for improving the competitiveness of the Italian citrus industry: the role of CREA
Article number
1413_16
Pages
131 – 138
Language
English
Abstract
Many old citrus viral diseases have almost disappeared in Italy thanks to the distribution of healthy propagative materials with CAC standard of quality.
However, new emerging diseases coming from foreign Countries are threatening the Mediterranean citriculture.
Therefore, the use of pest and disease-free budwoods compliant to the new voluntary European Certification rules is of crucial importance for the long-term sustainability of the citrus industry.
Since 1993, the Research Centre for Olive, Fruit and Citrus Crops of CREA, Italy, has played a key role in the maintenance and distribution of true-to-type, certified disease-free citrus propagative material, maintaining the pre-basic and basic stocks of some of the most important national and foreign cultivars of orange, lemon, clementine, bergamot, mandarin and hybrids, as well as ornamental and rootstock varieties.
More than 20 clonal selections, hybrids and rootstocks, have been sanitized by CREA in the last six years, by using shoot-tip grafting and/or nucellar selection, and some of them will be soon available for the nurseries.
A new screen-house, able to accommodate more than 600 additional mother plants, is under construction.
New efforts are being made to intensify the rootstock production by in vitro protocols and to speed the production of certified mother plants available for the nurseries having a role as multiplication centers.
Moreover, a preliminary evaluation of the potential advantages of NGS sequencing for simultaneous screening of viral systemic pathogens, in comparison with conventional tools, is now in progress with the support of Novarancia project, funded by the Rural Development Program Sicily 2014-2020.
However, new emerging diseases coming from foreign Countries are threatening the Mediterranean citriculture.
Therefore, the use of pest and disease-free budwoods compliant to the new voluntary European Certification rules is of crucial importance for the long-term sustainability of the citrus industry.
Since 1993, the Research Centre for Olive, Fruit and Citrus Crops of CREA, Italy, has played a key role in the maintenance and distribution of true-to-type, certified disease-free citrus propagative material, maintaining the pre-basic and basic stocks of some of the most important national and foreign cultivars of orange, lemon, clementine, bergamot, mandarin and hybrids, as well as ornamental and rootstock varieties.
More than 20 clonal selections, hybrids and rootstocks, have been sanitized by CREA in the last six years, by using shoot-tip grafting and/or nucellar selection, and some of them will be soon available for the nurseries.
A new screen-house, able to accommodate more than 600 additional mother plants, is under construction.
New efforts are being made to intensify the rootstock production by in vitro protocols and to speed the production of certified mother plants available for the nurseries having a role as multiplication centers.
Moreover, a preliminary evaluation of the potential advantages of NGS sequencing for simultaneous screening of viral systemic pathogens, in comparison with conventional tools, is now in progress with the support of Novarancia project, funded by the Rural Development Program Sicily 2014-2020.
Authors
G. Licciardello, M. Guardo, D. Pietro Paolo, P. Caruso, S. Di Silvestro, G. Sorrentino, G. Scuderi, A. Catara, M. Caruso
Keywords
germplasm conservation, phytosanitary legislation, shoot-tip grafting, HTS sequencing technology
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