South Africa Wine Research Projects

2. VITICULTURE RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

SPEED BREEDING VIA THE CREATION OF SHORT LIFE CYCLE MICROVINE PLANTS

FShip GenUS JL 23-01 Dr Justin Lashbrooke and Prof Johan Burger, Department of Genetics, Stellenbosch University

Start date: 2023 Flagship Project

AIM AND INDUSTRY RELEVANCE: Extracted from the research proposal presented by Dr Lashbrooke and Prof Burger: Grapevine breeding is time-consuming, largely because the species is a woody perennial with a long-life cycle. The time from seed to seed typically ranges from five to seven years. One way to overcome this problem is the incorporation of “microvine” into breeding programmes. Microvine is a grapevine mutant that has a seed-to-seed cycle of about six months. Incorporating microvine will allow the ongoing breeding programme to dramatically reduce timelines while building on the knowledge generated in previously funded Winetech projects. Cultivars generated through this approach can be used to dramatically reduce breeding times, accelerating our efforts and bene fiting the industry with novel cultivars in a shorter time. Importantly, novel cultivars bred using this approach will contain no transgenic material and can be considered non-GMO.

SOUTH AFRICA WINE RESEARCH 2024

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