PEACH GENETICS : PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE

The rediscovery of Mendel’s laws, at the beginning of this century, stimulated those who were in charge of peach improvement.
Mendelian inheritance was established for many characters of agronomic importance and an attempt was made to study quantitative characters and to appreciate the breeding value of many progenitors.

After a period of relative neglect, these studies have found new interest.
Studies on the inheritance of new natural mutations, as well as linkage or independence of some characters are in progress.
In quantitative genetics, the heritability as been established for many traits and some breeders try to obtain information on combining ability of progenitors and select with the help of an index.

Today, the most interesting new approach, is the study of isozymes.
Electrophoresis has increased our capacity of exploring natural mutations.
It’s also important to mention progress in chromosomal investigation and discovery of many haploids.

For the future, it will be necessary to establish the genetic map of the peach.
The need for new mutants may accelerate the recourse to artificial mutagenesis.
Molecular biological techniques will be more or less rapidly introduced: cloning and sequencing genes, genetic engineering.

II International Peach Symposium

R. Monet

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1989.254.8