RESOLUTION VITI 1/95

IDENTIFICATION OF VINE VARITIES – DEVELOPMENTS OF BIOCHEMICAL AND MOLECULAR METHODS

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,

after having heard the reports presented at Commission I "Viticulture" on the botanical and genetic aspects of the application of new computer techniques and of molecular biology, and following the conclusions of the IIIrd symposium on the "Characterization of Vine Varieties" which took place in Conegliano on the 2nd and 3rd June 1994,

DECLARES:

• That considerable work on the discrimination of genotypes by  biochemical  and  molecular methods has been undertaken in numerous countries,
• that specific methods are now available to distinguish vine varieties,
• that these biochemical and molecular methods offer an important complement to traditional methods of identification (ampelography and ampelometry),
• that the possibility of identifying genotypes is extremely important for scientific, legislative and commercial problems,

OBSERVES

That for the moment it is not yet possible to distinguish between the clones of a same variety;

RECOMMENDS:

• For the different genotypes, to have reference collections serving as a base for these methods of identification,
• To stimulate, with harmonization as its objective, research in molecular biology to improve the definitions of vine varieties and clones and to allow the standardisation of commercial transactions of these different categories of vegetal material,
• To favour the establishment of a network allowing exchanges on methods, data and results in molecular analyses.