Improving the artichoke quality of campania region

This article presents the results of the first morphological and genetic description of landraces from Campania Region (Italy). The artichoke material which is still grown by farmers includes a large number of landraces vegetatively propagated. The goal of the research was to identify homogeneous populations representing the main local cultivars of this Italian region, characterize them in order to improve their quality obtain virus-free material, and rationalize the use of agricultural techniques. Eight local cultivars: 'Bianco di Pertosa', 'Capuanella', 'Capuanella Nera', 'Castellammare', 'Montoro', 'Pascaiola', 'Pietrelcina' and 'Tondo di Paestum' were recovered and characterized morpho-physiologically by UPOV guidelines and molecularly by SSR and ISSR markers. Morphological results show a significant polymorphism between landraces for all head and plant attitude traits. On the other hand, there is a low genetic heterogeneity maybe due to a low number of molecular markers used. To improve the quality of artichoke cultivation together with its uniformity, the following procedures must be assessed: (i) viruseradication, (ii) improve the landraces uniformity distinctness in order to register new genotypes into the National Catalogue of Varieties.