The viticulture research institute in Pécs would contract with its partners to finance its breeding work

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Zoltán Madaras, the president of the research institute, said: they are looking for about 50 partners, including producers of grafts, producers of propagating material, planters of stock plants, and expect an annual income of HUF 3-5 million from the agreements expected to be concluded in August. Referred to in the organization’s announcement, the current legislation on the production, qualification and marketing of grape propagating materials stipulates that when establishing a stock plantation, the producer must request a planting permit and variety maintainer’s consent from the variety maintainer, i.e. the viticultural research institute, with which he must also sign a contract. In recent years, only the provisions of the first part of the law have been implemented, and contracts have not been concluded – the research institute pointed out, indicating that they would like to change this. In order to pay the unpaid royalties, the research institute previously contacted the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Food Chain Safety Office, the Baranya County Government Office and the Association of Hungarian Vine Propagation Growers. Negotiations are already underway, but the process is lengthy, which is why the research institute decided to visit its partners in the next few days and sign contracts with them one by one, so the production of grafts from Pécs varieties planned for next year will be smooth, they added.

The institute recommends to its partners that they include a maximum of HUF 5 additional costs per graft in the price for variety maintenance

In the case of an average HUF 500 graft, this means a one percent price increase. This amount is orders of magnitude smaller compared to the Western European variety maintainer contribution, but it is still a huge help for them, they said. It was pointed out that PTE SZBKI already has more than 80 state-certified grape varieties and clones, and this year 22 new dessert grape varieties have been submitted for state certification. They are constantly working on the breeding and clone selection of new varieties in the case of promising varieties such as Kékfrankos, Olaszriesling, Furmint and Jázmin, which belongs to the resistant varieties – they noted.

The university has been dealing with viticulture for more than 80 years

The University of Pécs previously informed MTI that the research institute was established in 1949, research, education and consultancy are served by approximately 30 hectares of vineyards, a 300-year-old cellar with a floor area of 1,600 square meters and an accredited laboratory. The institute, which today also deals with grape breeding, genetics, viticulture technology and oenological research, has more than 1,800 grape variety collections – in which there are many grape varieties – the sixth largest grape gene bank in the world and the second largest in Europe. It was emphasized that world-class resistance breeding is being carried out in Pécs alone in Hungary, the aim of which is to create and strengthen an environmentally conscious, more sustainable grape and wine sector.

MTI