Colturali

Colturali is an Italian term used in agronomy and botany to refer to elements related to cultivation. In practice, it is often employed to denote cultivated plant varieties, or cultivars, i.e., plant lines that have been selected or bred for specific traits and propagated for agricultural or horticultural use. Colturali are distinguished from wild relatives by characteristics such as higher yield, improved taste or appearance, pest and disease resistance, and adaptation to particular climates or growing conditions.

The word derives from cultura, the broader concept of cultivation, and colturale serves as an adjective or noun describing things connected with cultivation. In contemporary Italian, the more common modern loanword for cultivated plant forms is cultivar, or, when expressed as a translation, varietà coltivata. Nevertheless, colturali remains used in some agronomic and historical texts to refer to cultivated lines, especially when discussing breeding, selection, or propagation practices.

Development and propagation of colturali typically involve controlled breeding, clonal propagation, or grafting to preserve desirable traits. Their naming follows breeder or institutional conventions and may be subject to regional or international plant variety rights. In horticulture and agriculture, the cataloging of colturali in seed lists, nurseries, and research programs helps users identify varieties suitable for specific crops, environments, or purposes, from food crops to ornamental plants.

Overall, colturali describes the category of plants and other cultivated organisms that result from human selection and propagation, as distinct from their wild counterparts.