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Among the Mediterranean horticultural landraces, garlic is one of the crops most threatened by genetic erosion. Due to its sexual sterility and to the incidence of seed-borne diseases, historical varieties have been widely replaced by commercial cultivars. In Catalonia, despite the historical relevance of the crop, solely the Belltall garlic landrace is cultivated for commercial purposes. To assess the genotypic and phenotypic diversity within the Belltall garlic, we evaluated sixteen local accessions and five recognized traditional and modern varieties as controls. Genetic analysis with SSR and InDel markers showed low genetic diversity within the Belltall population, grouping modern and traditional varieties separately. Farmers and consumers were involved in the definition of the landrace ideotype and classified the materials by means of projective mapping. Scant phenotypic diversity was found within the Belltall landrace, which is characterized by its color profile and the small size of bulb and cloves. The Belltall landrace grown outside its area of origin lost the distinctive quality signals that differentiate the landrace from the commercial cultivars (clove appearance), indicating that the high quality of the landrace is under genotype-by-environment effects (i.e. local adaptation). Moreover, the size of the Belltall sowing clove had a strong effect on the harvested bulb size. Our research represents a case study for the description of the variability within garlic landraces and an approach to quantify the phenomenon of local adaptation that currently drives their conservation.

Among the Mediterranean horticultural landraces, garlic is one of the crops most threatened by genetic erosion. Due to its sexual sterility and to the incidence of seed-borne diseases, historical varieties have been widely replaced by commercial cultivars. In Catalonia, despite the historical relevance of the crop, solely the Belltall garlic landrace is cultivated for commercial purposes. To assess the genotypic and phenotypic diversity within the Belltall garlic, we evaluated sixteen local accessions and five recognized traditional and modern varieties as controls. Genetic analysis with SSR and InDel markers showed low genetic diversity within the Belltall population, grouping modern and traditional varieties separately. Farmers and consumers were involved in the definition of the landrace ideotype and classified the materials by means of projective mapping. Scant phenotypic diversity was found within the Belltall landrace, which is characterized by its color profile and the small size of bulb and cloves. The Belltall landrace grown outside its area of origin lost the distinctive quality signals that differentiate the landrace from the commercial cultivars (clove appearance), indicating that the high quality of the landrace is under genotype-by-environment effects (i.e. local adaptation). Moreover, the size of the Belltall sowing clove had a strong effect on the harvested bulb size. Our research represents a case study for the description of the variability within garlic landraces and an approach to quantify the phenomenon of local adaptation that currently drives their conservation., This research was supported by the Ajuntament de Passanant i Belltall, the Diputació de Tarragona, the Catalan Government through the Pla de la Biodiversitat Cultivada (grant ARP152/21/000010), and the grant ACCIÓ -Eurecat (Project PRIV2020-PLANTOMICS), This research was supported by the Ajuntament de Passanant i Belltall, the Diputació de Tarragona, the Catalan Government through the Pla de la Biodiversitat Cultivada (grant ARP152/21/000010), and the grant ACCIÓ -Eurecat (Project PRIV2020-PLANTOMICS), Postprint (published version)

Peach [Prunus persica L. Batsch] is one of the major temperate fruit tree species, the commercial materials of which have a low level of genetic variability. Almond [P. dulcis (Mill) DA Webb], a close relative of peach cultivated for its kernels, has a much higher level of diversity. The species are inter-compatible and often produce fertile hybrids, almond being a possible source of new genes for peach that could provide biotic and abiotic stress tolerance traits. In this paper we describe the development of a collection of peach-almond introgression lines (ILs) having a single fragment of almond (cv. Texas) in the peach background (cv. Earlygold). Lines with few introgressions were selected with markers from successive generations from a "Texas"× "Earlygold"F1 hybrid, initially using a set of SSRs and later with the 18 k peach SNP chip, allowing for the final extraction of 67 lines, 39 with almond heterozygous introgressions covering 99% of the genome, and 28 with homozygous introgressions covering 83% of the genome. As a proof of concept, four major genes and four quantitative characters were examined in the selected ILs giving results generally consistent with previous information on the genetics of these characters. This collection is the first of its kind produced in a woody perennial species and promises to be a valuable tool for genetic analyses, including dissection of quantitative traits, positional cloning, epistasis and as prebreeding material to introgress almond genes of interest into the peach commercial gene pool.