Latvia State Institute of Fruit-Growing                    

Board of Genetic Resources, Ministry of Agriculture

International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources

Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

List of fruit crop genetic resources at Latvia State Institute of Fruit-Growing

Current projects

Program of conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources

EU co-funded project "Development of data bank for Latvia tree species genetic resources"

Preservation of genetic resources:

According to the current subsidizing principles coordinated with the Ministry of Agriculture, the preserved fruit crop genetic resources (FCGR) include accessions of the following origin, conditionally divided into 2 groups:  

Group 1. Cultivars of Latvian breeding, as well as clones and elite hybrids originated and selected in Latvia with valuable quantitative or qualitative traits; varieties of local origin (landraces), including foreign cultivars with a long growing history (over 100 years) in Latvia;

Group 2. Clones and elite hybrids originated in Latvia with valuable quantitative or qualitative traits, which are still in the process of evaluation (breeding program of LSIFG and evaluation of the breeding material from the former „Iedzeni” experimental farm which is done at LSIFG and Pure Horticultural Research Centre), as well as reference varieties for the performance of DUS test.

Methods of preservation: FCGR are preserved only ex situ (in field collections). Each accession of tree plants is preserved as 2 trees; berry bushes (including blueberries and Japanese quince) and grapes as 3 plants; rootstocks, raspberries, cranberries and lingonberries (cowberries) – 10 plants; strawberries as 30 plants. FCGR collection is maintained according to the growing demands of each crop, still there is always a risk that weather conditions damage the collections and individual accessions. For the reason of safety  Group 1 accessions are duplicated – the base collection is maintained at LSIFG, but reserve duplications – at Pure HRC. At present 423 samples of fruit crop genetic resources have been duplicated.

Research of genetic resources:

Descriptors for the evaluation and characterization of Latvian fruit crop genetic resources are worked out at present for:
- raspberry,
- pear,
- gooseberry,
- hazel,
- mountain ash (rowan),
- seabuckthorn,
- grape,
- strawberry.

Molecular genetic passportiation of fruit crop genetic resources has been started:

- working out methods (apples, sweet and sour cherries, black currants, raspberries);

- performing molecular passportization, data analysis (apples, cherries).

Cooperation: