CYTO-EMBRYOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF SEEDLESSNESS IN VITIS VINIFERA L. AND EXPLOITING DNA RECOMBINANT TECHNOLOGY AS AN ADVANCED APPROACH FOR INTRODUCING SEEDLESSNESS INTO VINIFERA AND MUSCADINE GRAPES

Vitis vinifera L. is the predominant commercial species used for fresh fruit consumption, and seedlessness is essential for a cultivar to be accepted as table grape.
Unfortunately, few cultivars grown in the southeastern United States are seedless and grapes other than native species and their hybrids cannot survive the local environment that is much in favor grape fungal diseases such anthracnose and downy mildew.
Incorporating the seedless trait from V. vinifera grapes into muscadine grapes using conventional breeding technique has been a common approach in the past.
Interspecific incongruity and hybrid infertility have hampered the breeding efforts.
This study investigated cyto-embryological aspect of seedlessness in grape and developed strategies for transferring “seedlessness” gene into muscadine variety ‘Fry’ and seeded V. vinifera variety ‘Velika’ via DNA recombinant technology.

VIII International Conference on Grape Genetics and Breeding

V. Colova-Tsolova, J. Lu, A. Perl

embryology, genetic transformation, cell ablation

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2003.603.26