Even if the visiting doctoral student’s efforts at the University of Wyoming’s Sheridan Research and Extension Center succeed, she won’t get a taste of her own success.
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SHERIDAN, Wyo. – Even if the visiting doctoral student’s efforts at the University of Wyoming’s Sheridan Research and Extension Center succeed, she won’t get a taste of her own success.
Cecilia Limera, from Italy, is working six months in Sadanand Dhekney’s laboratory trying to learn, and then return to Europe, grape precision breeding techniques Dhekney has crafted through years of research. Dhekney is the E.A. Whitney endowed assistant professor in the UW Department of Plant Sciences.
Limera is learning how to initiate embryo cultures of different grape varieties via non-sexual means and modify them using existing DNA sequences from the grapes and their “wild” relatives. No new genetic material is added.
She is learning precision breeding because European grape growers are caught between diseases, pests and regulations limiting chemical applications. Wine industry businesses and government regulators want other ways of continuing their varieties without using GMOs (genetically modified organisms).
Limera rates the value of learning such techniques high.
“I’d say ‘10,’ or even priceless,” she says. “The people specialized in this are really few.”
Dhekney is one of the few, and his expertise may help researchers who face time and consumer preference pressures. Researchers cannot improve existing grape varieties for pest and disease resistance through conventional plant breeding.
“The problem is most of the varieties are ancient varieties,” Dhekney says. “If you try to breed grapes that would be more resistant, you would lose their enological characteristics.”