Fruit growing
and viticulture of South Russia

Annotation

The grapes belong to the order Rhamnales, the family of Vitaceae or Ampelidaceae, which is divided into two subfamilies: Lecoidaceae and Ampelideae. The latter subfamily includes the genus Vitis. where there are about 40 Asian species, plus another 30 American species belonging to two subgenera: Muscadinia and Vitis. It is believed that the center of diversity of wild grapes is located in the Middle East, from the Anatolian Peninsula to Transcaucasia and Hyrcanus. Nowadays, wild grapes are widely spreaded throughout Eurasia, covering the territory from Portugal to Turkmenistan, and from the banks of the Rhine to the Northern forests of Tunisia. In Azerbaijan, wild grapes are found in the Samur-Divichin and Lankaran lowlands, Western and Eastern parts of the Greater Caucasus, northern, central and southern parts of the Lesser Caucasus. Phylogenetic patterns suggest the emergence of the genus Vitis L. in the North America, the fragmentation of the ancestral area in the Miocene, the formation of modern species in the Late Miocene-Pleistocene and the differentiation of species as a result of Pliocene-Quaternary tectonic and climatic changes. The emergence and development of wild grapes in Azerbaijan is evidenced by the prints of a leaf of wild grape Vitis sylvestris Gmel., discovered by archaeologists in the Upper Pliocene on a stone near the Araks River of the Zangelan Region, near the village of Mindzhivan on the border with Iran. The purpose of this work is to analyze data on the origin, current distribution and taxonomy of wild grapes obtained by various taxonomists and to contribute to a number of discussion issues in this area.