Collecting Landraces of Vegetable Crop Species in the South-West Romania

Abstract

A collecting mission was carried out in south-west Romania in October 2013 with the aims: (1) to collect autochthonous crop genetic resources which still present in the south-west of Romania; (2) to assess the presence of on farm of plant genetic resources; (3) to determine the species and the amount of genetic diversity still cultivated and (4) to obtain information from germplasm owners to be used to evaluate the feasibility of an on farm conservation program. Out of 24 explored towns, in 8, landraces were grown and in all, instances seeds could be obtained. Fifty-three accessions from different crop species were collected in 17 sites, belonging to 10 botanical families, of which solanaceae was the most represented (32%), followed by fabaceae (17%), cucurbitaceae (11%) and alliaceae and brassicaceae (9%). As expected, vegetable crops were the most collected, reaching a value as 58.5%, spices 20.8%, while pulses 15.1% and cereals 5.7% of the total. This collecting mission showed that in internal areas of Romania, germplasm of old landraces of many vegetable and crop species still survive, and indicated the urgency to continue also in other agricultural districts of Romania.

Vegetable Landraces: The “Gene Banks” for Traditional Farmers and Future Breeding Programs

“…One strategy to highlight the genetic treasure represented by the landraces is to identify the size of genetic variability for primary and secondary metabolites and to establish existing links between biochemical composition of edible products, genetic basis and consumer preferences [54]. Studies from last decade [20,55,56] showed that in Romania it still exists many vegetable landraces that need to be preserved and evaluated for further use in breeding programs.…”