La Coltivazione del mirto come complemento alle raccolte da piante spontanee per la sostenibilità dell'utilizzo industriale

The myrtle liqueur industry is developed in Sardinia by using the myrtle berries harvested from spontaneous plants as raw material. The market growth of this liqueur changed them from a home-made product to an industrial one, with increasing export to the national and international consumers. Myrtle liqueur is just an example of the typical regional sweet liqueurs of low alcohol content that recently are appreciated to a world level.Fruit harvests from spontaneous plants are well organized but the yield is not predictable depending on meteorological factors and on the occurrence of some events such as fires. Also the quality of the raw material is out of the control of harvesters and liqueur factories.The need to have an alternative system of raw material production and to reduce the ecological pressure over spontaneous plants generate a ten year long research for the optimisation of growing models of the species and the cultivar selection.The main results of the research program for myrtle cultivar selection and evaluation are reported. In particular, plant phenology and fruit technological characteristics for liqueur production were carefully observed.