Table grape breeding programs and new cultivars

Abstract

Table grapes are grown in almost every continent and the cultivars grown according to consumer demands may differ over the years. For this reason, table grape breeding studies are carried out in many countries. These breeding studies are carried out in public Universities and Research Institutes, as well as in recent years, different private sector representatives have come together and started to carry out breeding studies by forming a consortium or company. Especially companies such as Sun World, IFG, SNFL and Grapa are the most notable among these table grape breeding organizations. In parallel with the developments in biotechnology, it has become possible to develop table grape cultivars with the desired properties in a much shorter time. Especially with the Vitisgen1 and Vitisgen2 projects, which resulted in the participation of many research institutions in the USA, many gene regions of grapes were mapped, and as a result, grape breeding studies are expected to yield results in a much shorter time. Although there is a demand for table grapes with different characteristics in world markets, the demand for seedless, larger berry and disease-tolerant or resistant cultivars is much higher. Especially seedless table grape breeding studies are still continuing in many countries such as USA, Italy, Spain, Chile, Japan, Korea, China and Turkey. However, in line with the rapidly changing consumer demands, the number of grapevine genetic resources is being increased in many countries and conserved to meet these future demands and use in breeding studies.