
Pre-breeding for developing heat stress resilient grape varieties to ensure yield
Abstract
Climate change has numerous detrimental consequences and creates new challenges for viticulture around the world. Transitory or constant high temperatures frequently associated with an excess of sunlight (UV) can cause a variety of physiological disorders, such as sunburn. Diverse environmental factors and the plant’s response mechanisms to stress determine the symptoms. Grapevine berry sunburn leads to a drastic reduction in yield, and may eventually decline berry quality. Consequently, this poses a significant risk to the winegrowers. Therefore, the development of sunburn-resilient grape varieties is one of the imperative and effective strategies for sustainable viticulture in the future. The biodiversity of the genus Vitis provides a wide range of opportunities for developing sunburn-resilient grape varieties. In this perspective, the primary aim is to establish a laboratory-based phenotyping pipeline to monitor heat stress damage, thereby obviating the requirement for the ideal heat stress conditions in the field. Subsequently, using this tool we aim to determine the genomic area(s) responsible for heat stress resilience. The study utilizes a standard quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping and genome-wide association studies strategy, followed by identifying and characterizing the genes. The findings of such genetic variation facilitate an improved understanding of the mechanisms underlying heat stress resilience. Additionally, molecular markers will eventually enable screening for heat stress resilience using marker-assisted selection (MAS) and extend options for early selection considerably. Thus, this opens up new strategies for the efficient breeding of novel grapevine varieties better adapted to climate change.
Acknowledgements: We gratefully appreciate the Interreg for funding the project KliWiReSSE
DOI:
Issue: ICGWS 2023
Type: Poster
Authors
Julius Kühn-Institut, Institute for Grapevine Breeding Geilweilerhof, Siebeldingen, Germany
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Keywords
Vitis vinifera, heat stress, climate resilience, sunburn, QTL, MAS