Grapevines with (left) and without (right) powdery mildew. Powdery mildew can cause slowed growth, reduced fruit quality, lower yield and poor winter hardiness in grapevines.
Researchers Avinash Karn, Cheng Zou, Siraprapa Brooks, Jonathan Fresnedo-Ramírez, Franka Gabler, Qi Sun, David Ramming, Rachel Naegele, Craig Ledbetter and Lance Cadle-Davidson from the VitisGen2 project have announced the discovery of a new, stable qualitative resistance locus in Vitis aestivalis named REN 11, located on chromosome 15, that was found to be effective in reducing powdery mildew in nearly all vineyard environments on leaves, rachis, berries and most of the time in stems.
The paper describes 15 years of work with one of the three original mapping families that established the foundation for VitisGen. Over those years, 5 postdocs and 3 USDA grape breeders have provided support. Learn more about this discovery of the REN 11 locus in ‘Discovery of the REN11 Locus from Vitis aestivalis for Stable Resistance to Grapevine Powdery Mildew in a Family Segregating for Several Unstable and Tissue-Specific Quantitative Resistance Loci‘ in the September 3, 2021 edition of Frontiers in Plant Science.
