The Almonds and Related Species

Almond and peach species have global importance as food crops as well as use in landscaping including restoration and reforestation. Because currently available breeding germplasm has a very narrow genetic base, genetic improvement programs are turning to wild germplasm as sources of improved quality, productivity and resistance traits. This germplasm is also enabling the dramatic modification of traditional cropping systems as with the transfer of self-fruitfulness from related wild almond and peach species to normally self-sterile cultivated almond. While presence of an extensive wild almond and related germplasm has been documented in the literature over the past century, most information remains dispersed and often not generally accessible owing to its publication in treatises and journals of limited distribution.

This monograph brings together a comprehensive characterization of almond and its related species including the cultivated and wild peaches. Because it represents the only comprehensive source of information on almond, peach and their wild relatives, it represents a basic reference text of interest to researchers in both the basic and applied plant and ecological sciences.

Auteur

Dr. Alireza Rahemi is an Assistant Professor of Horticultural Science at Morehead State University. He has done extensive research and continues to work on wild relatives of temperate fruits and nut trees. He received his PhD in Horticulture and conducted his thesis research at the University of Florida, USA. His PhD research focused on wild almond species, including genetic diversity, using new emerging molecular techniques. He has also researched the wild grape species of Ontario and their utilization as rootstock during his Post-doctoral research at the University of Guelph, Canada. He was also a Post-doctoral research associate at Virginia State University for several years and worked on various specialty crops before moving to MSU.

Prof. Thomas M. Gradziel received a PhD degree in 1987 in Plant Breeding from Cornell University. He is a professor and geneticist in the Department of Plant Sciences, University of California at Davis, where his responsibilities include the genetic improvement of almond and peach. He currently holds the L.D. Davis Professorship, which was established to promote the application of the appropriate biotechnologies to tree crop improvement. His research focuses on the genetic improvement of almond and peach. The strategies employed include wild germplasm characterization, preservation and introgression, intra-and inter-specific hybridization, marker assisted selection, and epigenetic manipulation.