Extreme canopy management for vineyard adaptation to climate change: is it a good idea?

Grapevines are grown grafted in most viticultural regions. Grapevine rootstocks are either hybrids or pure species of different American Vitis spp. (particularly V. berlandieri, V. rupestris and V. riparia), which were primarily used to provide root resistance to the insect pest Phylloxera. In addition to Phylloxera resistance, grapevine rootstocks were also selected in relation their resistance to various abiotic stress conditions. Future rootstocks should have the potential to adapt viticulture to climate change without changing the characteristics of the harvested product. However, high grafting success rates are an essential prerequisite to be able to use them with all the varieties. The objective of this work is to develop quantitative techniques to characterize graft union formation in grapevine.

Vitis vinifera L. derivatives are susceptible to contamination by biological agents (e.g., bacteria, viruses, fungi), and chemical agents (e.g., heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants).

Proximal sensors are becoming widely used in precision viticulture, due to the quick, easy and non-invasive identification of soil spatial variability. The apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) is the main parameter measured by sensors, which is correlated to many factors, like soil water content, salinity, clay content and mineralogy, rock fragments, bulk density, and porosity.

High resolution soil maps (scale : 1/3000) were created for seven of the most prestigious red wine producing estates in Bordeaux, covering in total approximately 400 ha.

Volatile phenols namely 4-ethylphenol and 4-ethylguaiacol are formed by enzymatic decarboxylation of hydroxycinnamic acids by Brettanomyces yeasts to give vinylphenols and subsequent reduction of the vinyl group to form the correspondent ethylphenols. The presence of these compounds in wine affects negatively its aromatic quality, conferring unpleasant animal and phenolic odor when present in quantities above the olfactory detection threshold [1]. Several methods have been described to remove these undesirable compounds from wines, including the use laccase enzymes [2, 3]. Due to this, the aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of several natural redox mediators on the activity of Botrytis cinerea laccase against these volatile phenols.