Recovery, morphological and molecular characterization of globe artichoke ‘Romanesco’ landraces

Abstract

The ‘Romanesco’ globe artichoke is of substantial economic importance for Italy, its major world producer. The widespread adoption of single early uniform micropropagated clones has led to erosion of local genetic resources. In an attempt to characterise landrace diversity for future breeding activities and/or germplasm conservation, a set of 19 clones derived from plants cultivated in traditional areas of Latium region were typed using a combination of morphological traits (UPOV descriptors) and DNA markers (AFLP and ISSR). Principal Component Analysis and significant correlations among some of the morphological traits showed that a reduced number of descriptors could be used efficiently to discriminate between the clones. Stepwise regression analysis identified a number of significant and consistent associations between certain morphological characters and marker loci. Heritability for important economic traits were computed; moreover, remarkable clones for future breeding activities were recognized. The variability present within the farmers’ fields is an important factor in the design of a rational strategy of in situ germplasm conservation.