Albanian National Program and Updates

Leafy vegetables collection status

Sokrat Jani Agricultural Technologies Transfer Center,

Lushnja City, Albania Office Tel. & Fax: 00355 352 24 98

E-mail sokratjani@yahoo.com; E-mail qttblushnje@yahoo.com;

Second Meeting of the ECPGR Working Group on Leafy Vegetables

8-9 October 2013, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Introduction In Albania 7.5 % of planted area is dedicated to the vegetables production (about 30.000 ha), 5.3 % of which belong to Leafy vegetable species. Spinach and Lettuce are the most important crops in cultivated area and production.

Nr. of accessions per Leafy vegetable species stored in ATTC-Lushnja, Albania

Species Name No. Accessions

Cultivar type

Advanced Landrace Wild

Atriplex spp Orache 2 - - 2

Cichorium spp Chicory 12 10 - 2

Spinacia oleraceae Spinach 9 5 4 -

Latuca spp Lettuce 12 4 7 1

Eruca spp Rocket 2 2 - -

Rumex spp Rumex 2 - 1 1

Total 39 21 12 6

* The national gene bank of Tirana (built in 1998) preserves only Albanian material

Collection status of Leafy vegetable species

In some rural areas, away from cities and residential centers, that the planted surface is small, are used landraces, mostly for consumption in old households.

Most of these landraces, especially Lettuce and Spinach, are distinguished for some special features such as: thin and good taste, high tolerance or resistance to disease, pest, etc.

Some wild plant species of Atriplex, Chenopodium, Lepidium, Portulaca, Rumex, Taraxacum, are used for consumption in rural households.

Collection status of leafy vegetables species

The main task of the Albanian Gene Bank, according to annual programs, is the preservation of genetic material and its monitoring (through periodic performance testing of germination capabilities).

For the last two years there has been no specific activity, related to the assessment and documentation of accessions.

National Gene Bank is working to complete this year the documentation of vegetables crops according EURISCO system.

What has been done? It is well-known that landraces are subject to continuous loss due to several factors. Among them the most important ones are loss of traditional knowledge due to change in life style, changing needs of the populations, economic reasons, environmental change (climate, irrigation, disease, fires, etc), market value of the landraces, population growth and changing agricultural systems.

ATTC - Lushnja has organized some activities in management and conservation of Leafy vegetable species’ accessions, as following:

Key activities regarding leafy vegetables

• Evaluation of the accessions was only started for lettuce and mainly involved its post harvest values.

•Accessions for evaluation for utilization and marketing were identified.

•Accessions of lettuce were assessed for their suitability for local markets in last two years

1. Evaluation and Identification of accessions for use in marketing activities

Key activities regarding leafy vegetables

2. Characterization of the accessions

Characterization of the accessions was made only for cultivated

lettuce and according to the Minimum descriptor lists

Key activities regarding leafy vegetables

3. Regeneration of the accessions

• Regeneration (seed production) activities of lettuce, chicory, endive and rocket took place in the last two years and all the accessions involved in this group were regenerated by the ATTC-Lushnja.

• Homogeneous accessions are regenerated with 30 plants, while 40 plants are used for heterogeneous samples, such as landraces. In case of extremely heterogeneous samples, 60 plants are used.

•Individual plants are manually harvested when the majority of seeds were ripened.

•Harvested inflorescences are collected in paper bags and transferred to the drying and cleaning facility.

Key activities regarding leafy vegetables 4. Exploration and Collecting of crop wild relatives

• Some villages, mainly in southern districts, of the country have shown some form of interest in indigenous wild plants resources conservation, but the evaluation of their genetic variability for agronomic desirable traits is still in its infancy.

•The wild plant species are also adapted to many natural conditions, pests and diseases. Therefore, they can be very good sources for genetic improvement of cultivated species especially in the area of pests and diseases resistance.

• Despite these values, these vegetables have been neglected for many years by researchers, policy makers and funding agencies and are currently threatened with extinction. There is a great need not only to conserve their germplasm but also to improve their production.

•Some of these wild plant species identified and collected by the ATTC-Lushnja and used for consumption in rural households, are following:

Rumex

Chicories-wild plants

Amaranths

Taraxacum (Taraxacum officinalis. L)

Purslane , Orache and Goosefoots

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea. L.)

Chenopodium album L

Main bottlenecks regarding the collection management of leafy vegetables

• Until the end of 2006 the National Gen Bank (NGB-Tirana) and some Agriculture Research Institutes (ARI) were under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture. After this period NGB passed under the auspices of the Agricultural University of Tirana, while ARI-s were merged and some centers for transfer agricultural technologies (as ATTC-Lushnja) were set up.

• After 2007, agricultural research funding was severely reduced, leading to a decrease in some activities related to collection, evaluation and regeneration of plant genetic resources.

• Even as a result of merging of the agriculture research institutes, the breeding activities for developing new cultivars were not carried out for some time.

II- Safety duplication issues; Until now it has not been possible to maintain a safe duplication due to the following reasons:

Still lacking a part of the collections, with sufficient quantity seeds;

Lack of production of high quality seeds with sufficient quantities for conservation and utilization.

It is necessary to establish a functional system of safety duplication of the leafy vegetable crops in cooperation with the ECPGR Leafy Veg WG, in regional level (especially for countries with small collections).

ATTC-Lushnje is a small center for the transfer of agricultural technologies and does not have facilities to process seeds (cleaning, drying, fumigation, packaging); it produces and conserves the seeds as "fresh seeds" (seeds matured, but dried in natural conditions and packed in paper envelopes), while National Gene Bank does not actually have the financial possibility for regeneration, preparation and safety duplication.

May be more effectively to send our collection, as "fresh seeds", in any other countris’ Gene Banks.

Thank you

for your attention