Assessing bunch architecture for grapevine yield forecasting by image analysis

Extreme climatic events, such as prolonged drought followed by intense flooding, increasingly impact viticulture, affecting vine physiology, productivity, and grape composition.

The pinking is a phenomenon that can occur in white wine produced with white grape causing the color change from yellow to red-salmon hue. Even if its appearance is highly variable and dependent to the vintage, the wines from certain grape varieties, such as Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling and Trebbiano di Lugana, have been identified to be more susceptible to the pinking.

Vinification by carbonic maceration (CM) is based in the anaerobic fermentative metabolism also called intracellular fermentation (IF).

The use of rootstock of American origin has been the classic method of fighting against Phylloxera for more than 100 years. For this reason, it is interesting to establish if different rootstock modifies nutrient composition as well as trace elements content that could be important for determining the traceability of the vine products. A survey of four classic rootstocks (110-Richter, SO4, FERCAL and 1103-Paulsen) and four new ones (M1, M2, M3 and M4) provided by Agromillora Iberia. S.L.U., all of them grafted with the Tempranillo variety, has been carried out during 2019. The eight rootstocks were planted in pots of 500 cc, on three soils with very different characteristics from Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). In the month of July, the leaves were collected and dried in a forced air oven for seven days at 40ºC. Then, the samples were prepared for the analysis determination, carried out by X-Ray fluorescence spectrometry. The results obtained showed that in the case of content in mineral elements in leaf, separated by soil type, we can report the importance of few elements such as Si, Fe, Pb and, especially, Sr. The rootstock does not influence the composition of the vine leaf for the studied elements that are the most important in determining the geochemical footprint of the soil. The influence of the soil can be discriminated according to some elements such as Fe, Pb, Si and, especially, Sr.

Climate change impacts grape production worldwide and in California drought and salinity became increasingly challenging for grape growers to maintain sustainable production and fruit quality.