Terroir 2004 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 Distribution and associated symptoms of grapevine trunk pathogens in South Africa

Distribution and associated symptoms of grapevine trunk pathogens in South Africa

Abstract

In recent studies, several grapevine trunk pathogen complexes have been identified from grapevines in South Africa. These pathogens include Eutypa lata, Phaeomoniella chlamydospora, Phaeoacremonium sp., Botryosphaeria sp. and Phomopsis sp. Trunk diseases lead to reduced yield, and grape quality as well as a decline and premature dieback of grapevines. Infection occurs as early as the propagation processes, or during the subsequent vineyard development. As these pathogens infect mainly through wounds, most research has focussed on the protection of pruning wounds. However, climatic differences between different grape growing regions would likely affect the demographics of regional pathogen populations. In order to develop management strategies for specific regions, it was therefore necessary to determine the distribution of grapevine trunk disease pathogens in different grape growing regions of South Africa.
During October 2003 – April 2004, a survey of visually healthy grapevines was conducted in 10+ year-old Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards in Stellenbosch, Malmesbury, Vredendal, and Robertson (3 vineyards from each region). In the fifth region, Upington, Ruby Cabernet vineyards were sampled. Samples consisting of the two distel cordon pieces (including the last spurs on each side) were collected from twenty grapevines in each vineyard. The occurrence of trunk disease pathogens was determined by doing isolations onto potato dextrose agar from all the different wood decay symptom types that were observed in cross sections of the samples. Plates were incubated for 2 – 4 weeks before the isolated fungi were identified based on morphological or molecular characteristics.
Internal wood symptoms ranged from black and brown vascular streaking, brown V-shaped lesions, brown watery lesions, brown internal necrosis and Esca associated symptoms. The isolations clearly showed that specific symptom types could not be attributed to one single pathogen but that overlap of symptoms occurred between pathogens. The dominating pathogens across the five surveyed areas were Pa. chlamydospora and Botryosphaeria sp., which were isolated two to four times more frequently than Phaeoacremonium sp. and Phomopsis sp. In the cooler regions of Stellenbosch and Malmesbury, the dominating pathogens were Pa. chlamydospora and Phaeoacremonium sp., while Botryosphaeria sp. occurred more frequently in the hotter regions of Robertson, Vredendal and Upington. Relatively low numbers of Eutypa lata were recorded with the Stellenbosch area having the highest occurrence of the fungus. These results therefore indicate that the demographics of trunk disease pathogen populations differ between climatically different areas. Pruning wound protection strategies should consequently be adjusted accordingly.

DOI:

Publication date: January 12, 2022

Issue: Terroir 2004

Type: Article

Authors

J.M. van Niekerk (1), P.H. Fourie (1) and F. Halleen (2)

(1) Department of Plant Pathology, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South
Africa
(2) Disease Management, ARC Infruitec-Nietvoorbij, Private Bag X5026, Stellenbosch 7599, South
Africa

Contact the author

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 2004

Citation

Related articles…

1H-NMR-based Metabolomics to assess the impact of soil type on the chemical composition of Mediterranean red wines

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different soil types on the chemical composition of Mediterranean red wines, through untargeted and targeted 1H-NMR metabolomics. One milliliter of raw wine was analyzed by means of a Bruker Avance II 400 spectrometer operating at 400.15 MHz. The spectra were recorded by applying the NOESYGPPS1D pulse sequency, to achieve water and ethanol signals suppression. No modification of the pH was performed to avoid any chemical alteration of the matrix. The generation of input variables for untargeted analysis was done via bucketing the spectra. The resulting dataset was preprocessed prior to perform unsupervised PCA, by means of MetaboAnalyst web-based tool suite. The identification of compounds for the targeted analysis was performed by comparison to pure compounds spectra by means of SMA plug-in of MNova 14.2.3 software. The dataset containing the concentrations (%) of identified compounds was subjected to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to highlight significant differences among the wines. The untargeted analysis, carried out through the PCA, revealed a clear differentiation among the wines. The fragments of the spectra contributing mostly to the separation were attributed to flavonoids, aroma compounds and amino acids. The targeted analysis leaded to the identification of 68 compounds, whose concentrations were significant different among the wines. The results were related to soils physical-chemical analysis and showed that: 1) high concentrations of flavan-3-ols and flavonols are correlated with high clay content in soils; 2) high concentrations of anthocyanins, amino acids, and aroma compounds are correlated with neutral and moderately alkaline soil pH; 3) low concentrations of flavonoids and aroma compounds are correlated with high soil organic matter content and acidic pH. The 1H-NMR metabolomic analysis proved to be an excellent tool to discriminate between wines originating from grapes grown on different soil types and revealed that soils in the Mediterranean area exert a strong impact on the chemical composition of the wines.

Basic Terroir Unit (U.T.B.) and quality control label for honey; making the designations of origin (A.O.C) and« crus » more coherent

Considérant d’une part la judicieuse mise au point d’un label de qualité contrôlée des miels suisses (STÖCKLI et al. 1997), considérant d’autre part l’élaboration d’une carte des paysages végétaux (HEGG et al. 1993),

´Vinho Verde´ wines production from differential fermentation: the role of musts sulphitation as a preservation strategy to keep the musts character

High-volume mass-market white wines production method by means of harvest-deferred fermentation from desulphited musts allows an efficient business management by avoiding the seasonality in wine sector.

Impact of Ecklonia maxima seaweed extract on the vegetative, reproductive and microbiome in Vitis vinifera L. cv Cabernet-Sauvignon

Context and purpose of the study. Climate change is a major challenge in wine production. It results in erratic weather conditions which may lead to a reduction in grape yield and the subsequent grape and wine quality.

Application of organic carbon status indicators on vineyard soils: the case study of DOC Piave (Veneto region, Italy)

According to the Kyoto Protocol objectives, it’s necessary to identify alternative carbon dioxide sinks, and vineyard soils could be a significant opportunity.