Characterisation of Sardinian Malus and Pyrus varieties, through comparative seed image and genetic analyses

History of fruit tree cultivation in Sardinia seems to be dated from the Bronze Age and during the Phoenician-Punic period (Agabbio et al., 2015; Ucchesu et al., 2015). Many fruits were collected for human consumption as a fig, plum, grape, olive, almond and hazelnuts (Condit, 1947; Ucchesu et al., 2014; Sarigu et al., 2016). The long tradition of the cultivation of fruit trees in Italy has created over time a genetic biodiversity that currently is disappearing because of their substitution with new, more productive varieties. However, to avoid the loss of genetic diversity these they must be are properly maintained (Choen et al., 1991). For Sardinia, the protection of biodiversity of wild and domesticated fruit species with limited diffusion is even more justified in that they represent a gene pool for the long geographical isolation and genetic shows great interest for research not only in Italy (Agabbio et al., 2015). The old varieties have been almost excluded from the orchards because of their low productivity, which in many cases did not have met the standards of modern varieties. The fruit germplasm of Italian varieties is an important resource of genetic diversity that can be used in addition characterizations for the germplasm collections of European, to optimize the efficiency of the association studies within the genome and to identify genomic regions control the main horticultural characteristics (Liang et al., 2015). Presently for the preservation of ancient varieties in Italy, there are different catalogue fields where the characteristics of these ancient varieties are preserved and studied both from the genotype and the phenotypic point of view.