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Conventional breeding of Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare ssp. hirtum) and development of improved cultivars for yield potential and essential oil quality

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Abstract

This study is an attempt to describe a conventional breeding program on Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare ssp. hirtum). First of all, a descriptor list including the most significant morphological traits was developed for the starting genetic material. The program aimed to select the elite self-plants obtained from the initial population originated from Samothraki Island, in purpose to generate the ideotype of a new cultivar, characterized by desirable agronomical traits and qualitative properties. Therefore, a pedigree intraselection method, based on widely spaced single-plant performance through honeycomb arrangement, was applied. The existing genetic/phenotypic variability of plants and families produced after selection was evaluated for plant’s growth and biomass density, type of stems and inflorescences and their components of yield potential. In addition, the effect of the mode of pollination on plants’ performance from two types of families obtained from self (SP) and open pollination (OP) was assessed. The evaluation for the components of yield potential, the composition of essential oil and carvacrol content, was detected in selected self plants, revealing genotypes with high yield potential. The target of this breeding program was the selection for high essential oil and carvacrol content and stabilization of valuable herbage components. The main selection criteria; high carvacrol and essential oil content, dry weight of leaves and flowers, ratio of leaves and flowers per stem, were subjected to statistical analysis using analytic hierarchy process, and plants were ranking according to their performance. The end-scope of this research was to recombine or even improve the starting population of local population of Greek oregano, according to mean essential oil content and carvacrol, biomass production and uniformity in desirable yield components using efficient breeding and statistical tools of selection.

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Abbreviations

OP:

Open pollinated

SP:

Self pollinated

MAPs:

Medicinal and aromatic plants

GC–MS:

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

AHP:

Analytic hierarchy process

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude and thanks towards Dr. Aggelos Markos for his invaluable help in developing the spreadsheet for running the AHP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Hellenic Agricultural Organization Demeter, Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources Institute (PB&GRI), Thermi, 57001, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Eirini Sarrou, Paschalina Chatzopoulou & George Tsakalidis

  2. Laboratory of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Department of Agriculture, Faculty of AgricultureForestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Eirini Sarrou, Nektaria Tsivelika, Georgios Menexes & Athanasios Mavromatis

Authors
  1. Eirini Sarrou
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  2. Nektaria Tsivelika
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  3. Paschalina Chatzopoulou
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  4. George Tsakalidis
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  5. Georgios Menexes
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  6. Athanasios Mavromatis
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Contributions

ES involved in the design and performed the experimental work, writing and editing together with interpretation of data; NT and GT contributed to the most of the experimental work and involved in the design of the work; GM contributed in performing AHP statistical analysis, writing and editing as well; AM and PC contributed to the conception and design of the work, involved on writing and editing and supervised the (breeding, chemical analysis) experimental work. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eirini Sarrou.

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Sarrou, E., Tsivelika, N., Chatzopoulou, P. et al. Conventional breeding of Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare ssp. hirtum) and development of improved cultivars for yield potential and essential oil quality. Euphytica 213, 104 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-017-1889-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-017-1889-1

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