| Abstract [eng] |
Cold hardiness and resistance in winter are key factors determining the geographical distribution of plants. In addition, these factors have a huge impact on harvest of cultural plants. Strawberries, which are among the most important berry plants in the world and in Lithuania, are vulnerable to cold because of unstable snow cover, which is more and more often occurring during variable wintering conditions. Insufficient resistance of strawberries in winter, absence of clear criteria, which enable to select the most resistant varieties during a shorter time than the few year period, impedes the development and introduction of new, adaptive, fertile, and of high-quality berries strawberry cultivars. The mechanisms of cold hardiness were intensively investigated using model plants. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the genetic regulation mechanisms of winterhardiness of cultural plants. For the selection of resistant to cold plants, the knowledge about plants cold acclimation and factors determining cold resistance and controlling genes is necessary. Investigating the plants under controlled conditions in vitro, it is possible to investigate the influence of individual factors on acclimation and cold hardiness by disassociating from the influence of many different factors, which is unavoidable under natural conditions. The cold acclimation and cold hardiness of strawberries are important not only for breeding. Preservation of plant genetic resources for future generations is an important task for modern biology. Plant storage at low positive temperatures by slowing down their life processes facilitates preservation and reduces costs of collections. However, not all cultivars equally survive at low temperatures; cold hardiness of individuals is highly variable. Therefore, to maintain large collections, the necessary is knowledge about individual genotypes, or groups of genotypes, and plant adaptability at low temperatures. However, little is known about the role of thermostable proteins and saccharides in cold acclimation process of strawberry. A new, deeper knowledge in plant cold acclimation and cold hardiness biology, as well as use of biomarkers, enables to create substantially new and to improve the existing breeding and gene resources preservation technologies. |
