Progress in Grapevine Breeding

A historical review about grapevine breeding especially resistance breeding reveals considerable activities in different countries around the world over many decades. Remarkable success has been achieved resulting in a lot of new cultivars combining quality and resistance traits. Recent progress in research concerning the genetics of grapes opens new perspectives for grapevine breeding. Establishing genetic maps, the discovery of loci for important viticultural traits like mildew resistance and the identification of related molecular markers allow an increasing application of marker assisted selection (MAS) in breeding programmes. MAS can be used for substituting phenotyping, for selection of genotypes with pyramided resistance loci, for optimizing pyramiding strategies as well as for acceleration of establishing of introgression lines with valuable traits from wild species. The use of marker assisted selection has allowed a paradigm shift from empirical breeding to knowledge based breeding.