The inheritance of cold tolerance in seven interspecific grape populations

The interspecific cross is an important breeding strategy in grape breeding program. Vitis amurensis is a wild species native to China that can withstand extreme cold temperatures. In this study, we used seven populations of different combinations, and six of these populations are of Vitis amurensis pedigree. The low temperature exotherms (LTEs) were used to evaluate the cold tolerance of grapes, and the results indicated that the cold tolerance inheritance of V. amurensis is very strong and additive and the broad-sense heritability ranged from 0.54 to 0.71 in seven populations. The LTE values distributed in the progeny in a normal, continuous manner despite a wide range of variation, indicating that their presence and concentration is a quantitative trait, controlled by polygenes. In addition, evidence of transgressive inheritance was noted, indicated by the exceptionally high cold tolerance observed amongst some of the progenies. These results are of both practical and scientific interests for further breeding efforts and researches on different cold tolerance in grape.