ViniGWAS – Improving the selection of climate-resilient grapevine varieties
2025
Medic, Marko | Kicherer, Anna | Herzog, Katja | Schwander, Florian | Hausmann, Ludger | Stein, Nils | Himmelbach, Axel | Töpfer, Reinhard | Trapp, Oliver | Röckel, Franco
The consequences of climate change are increasingly becoming a challenge for viticulture. One possible solution is the breeding of new, adapted grapevine varieties. So far, the use of existing genetic markers for fungal resistance brought about an increase in breeding efficiency, yet there is still a lack of such markers for climate-relevant traits. The goal of this project is the identification and characterization of genome regions associated with these traits, to enable the development of markers for breeding. The approach used in this project is a genome-wide association study (GWAS) coupled with whole-genome sequencing. The genotypic basis of the research are the Illumina 150 bp paired-end reads of several hundred different varieties of the cultivated grapevine Vitis vinifera L., with an expected coverage of 30× to 35×. The phenotypic data for the relevant traits (e. g. time of budburst, time of beginning of ripening or grape must contents) of these genotypes exist for several consecutive years, with further recording and measuring planned for the duration of the project. Through the advantages of GWAS, like better detection power and resolution of polygenetic traits, we aim to clarify the genetic associations of these traits. Afterwards markers developed from these findings may be used in a marker-assisted selection breeding workflow to accelerate the breeding of new grape varieties with improved climate-resilience.
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