S20 - Session P2 - Phenotyping grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) landraces diversity in Bekaa valley, Lebanon

Authors: Mark Massaad, Joe Merheb, Stephanie Rahme, Lamis Chalak *

Viticulture is one of the oldest fruit crop in Lebanon where numerous indigenous landraces continue to thrive in spite of the introduction of new foreign improved varieties. Nevertheless, collection missions and characterization of the local grapevine germplasm are still minimal. In this study, a survey was conducted in the Bekaa valley, land of grapevine production over history and in present time. A total of 53 accessions were collected and then characterized using a set of 21 morphological descriptors of the leaf, the cluster and the berry. In this study, 38 different vernacular names were recorded of which 15 were reported for the first time. Principal component analysis indicated that the most discriminative descriptors were the leaf and berry traits. Euclidian distance allowed differentiating the studied accessions into four major groups. Although limited to morphotyping, these results showed a significant diversity in the grapevine growing in the Bekaa valley, that should be later completed by DNA analysis, and investigated for its use in breeding programs and wine production sector.