College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Weigang, Nanjing, China.
Crit Rev Biotechnol. 2013 Jun;33(2):111-25. doi: 10.3109/07388551.2012.675314. Epub 2012 Jun 15.
Plant variety and cultivar identification is one of the most important aspects in agricultural systems. The large number of varieties or landraces among crop plants has made it difficult to identify and characterize varieties solely on the basis of morphological characters because they are non stable and originate due to environmental and climatic conditions, and therefore phenotypic plasticity is an outcome of adaptation. To mitigate this, scientists have developed and employed molecular markers, statistical tests and software to identify and characterize the required plant cultivars or varieties for cultivation, breeding programs as well as for cultivar-right-protection. The establishment of genome and transcriptome sequencing projects for many crops has led to generation of a huge wealth of sequence information that could find much use in identification of plants and their varieties. We review the current status of plant variety and cultivar identification, where an attempt has been made to describe the different strategies available for plant identification. We have found that despite the availability of methods and suitable markers for a wide range of crops, there is dearth of simple ways of making both morphological descriptors and molecular markers easy, referable and practical to use although there are ongoing attempts at making this possible. Certain limitations present a number of challenges for the development and utilization of modern scientific methods in variety or cultivar identification in many important crops.
植物品种和栽培品种鉴定是农业系统中最重要的方面之一。由于作物植物中有大量的品种或地方品种，仅根据形态特征来识别和描述品种变得很困难，因为它们不稳定，是由环境和气候条件引起的，因此表型可塑性是适应的结果。为了解决这个问题，科学家们开发并使用了分子标记物、统计测试和软件来识别和描述所需的植物栽培品种或品种，以用于种植、育种计划以及品种权利保护。许多作物的基因组和转录组测序项目的建立导致了大量序列信息的产生，这些信息在植物及其品种的鉴定中可能有很大的用途。我们回顾了植物品种和栽培品种鉴定的现状，尝试描述了现有的不同植物鉴定策略。我们发现，尽管有广泛的作物的方法和合适的标记物，但缺乏简单的方法来使形态描述符和分子标记物易于使用、可参考和实用，尽管正在进行使这成为可能的尝试。在许多重要作物中，现代科学方法在品种或栽培品种鉴定中的发展和利用存在一些局限性，这带来了一些挑战。
