Identification of Rubus accessions in Romania and a comparison of their relatedness to European and North American cultivars

This study has arisen from the recent consumer interest in soft fruit crops, particularly Rubus, in Romania where currently demand has to be served by collecting the berries from wild populations. This study examined the species make up in two important regions by collecting a number of Rubus accessions from the wild flora and determined the species classification by morphological identification. From the 100 individuals, collected from 7 different locations within the two regions, 11 different species were identified. SSR markers were then applied to compare the genotypes represented by the Romanian accessions to commercial European and North American cultivars. Amongst the plants sampled two groupings were apparent, group A mainly consisting of Romanian species, and group B mainly the European and North American cultivars of the Idaeobatus genus.