Proceedings of the XLV Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy - 26/29 September, 2001

ISBN 88-900622-1-5

Poster Abstract

LANDRACES OF PHASEOLUS IN CENTRAL ITALY: COLLECTION ON FARM AND EX SITU CONSERVATION AND GENETIC DIVERSITY

TOSTI N.*, TIRANTI B., NEGRI V.

Dipartimento di Biologia Vegetale e Biotecnologie Agroambientali, University of Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy

vnegri@unipg.it

(*present address: CNR, Istituto per le Ricerche sul Miglioramento Genetico delle Piante Foraggere, Via della Madonna Alta, Perugia)

landraces, genetic diversity, on farm conservation

Phaseolus landraces are still maintened on-farm in central Italy. Different varieties are often grown in each location and in each farm. They are maintained on-farm because of a local market request of high quality products or because of sticking to family traditional use in cooking (22 and 75% of recorded cases, respectively). They appear severely endangered with the risk of extintion due to the old age of the farmers. Thirtyone P. vulgaris and five P. coccineus were collected and stored in the Department’s gene bank. A morphological characterisation revealed differences among collected materials for seed weight, shape and colour pattern. Three AFLP primer combinations were used to assess genetic variation among collected materials, a wild accession of P. vulgaris and commercial varieties of both species. They revealed a quite high percentage of polymorphism (90.2% of polymorphic bands as an average). A wide genetic variation was observed among collected materials and each accession showed an unique pattern of polymorphism. P. vulgaris landraces were discriminated in different subgroups, often referring to collections sites of accessions. A group included the accessions from the Mediterranean area around the Trasimeno lake an other group included accession from the humid Mediterranean area within the Appennino mountains. These findings demonstrates the peculiar genetic identity of landraces studied also in relationship with human and environmental selection pressures. Possible on-farm conservation strategies should rely on widening local markets of typical products.