Fruit-set and SSR markers of fig cultivars from Puglia region, Southeastern Italy

Fig cultivars may produce one or two crops per year of which the first crop is defined as breba whereas the second is the main fig crop. More than 100 different fig genotypes are present in the fig repository at the Experimental Station “P. Martucci” belonging to the University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ and they produce both brebas and figs. In order to investigate the biological behavior of local varieties, a set of 18 fig genotypes was studied for fruit-set. Breba-set resulted very variable, ranging from no brebas at all to around 90%. Fig-set was generally low-medium in many genotypes and particularly low in cultivars defined as “San Pedro-type” producing mainly brebas. We coupled this analysis with the screening of SSR markers. Results showed that 94.9% of tested primer pairs were found polymorphic, of which 50% showed multiple discrete bands and 50% presented a single band. This allowed us to discriminate the genetic variability of fig genotypes.