GiESCO 2019 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 GiESCO 9 GiESCO 2019 9 Impact of crop load management on terpene content in gewürztraminer grapes

Impact of crop load management on terpene content in gewürztraminer grapes

Abstract

Context and purpose of the study ‐ Crop load management by cluster thinning can improve ripening and the concentration of key metabolites for grape and wine quality. However, little work has been done on testing the impact of crop load management on terpene content of white grapes. The goal of the study was to assess if by reducing crop load via cluster thinning growers can increase terpene concentration of grapes, as well as to test if the timing of thinning application affects terpene concentration.

Material and methods ‐ This study was performed in 2016, 2017, and 2018 in Oliver, British Columbia. Field‐grown Gewürztraminer vines were cluster‐thinned at two developmental stages, just after fruit‐set (Early Thinning) and at veraison (Late Thinning), in order to target three crop levels: Light Crop (7 tons/ha), Moderate Crop (10.5 tons/ha), and High Crop (14 tons/ha). Treatments were replicated on five plots arranged in a randomized block design. The effect of treatments on leaf gas exchanges, vine leaf area, and berry sugar (total soluble solid, TSS), acid (titratable acidity, TA), and terpene concentration was analyzed during ripening and at harvest. Free and glycosylated terpenes were identified and quantified using a SPME‐GC‐MS and a LI‐GC‐MS, respectively.

Results ‐ Crop level treatmentsdid not affect leaf gas exchanges and vine leaf area. TSS concentration during ripening and at harvest was higher in Light Crop and Moderate Crop treatments than in High Crop, particularly for Early Thinning treatments. High Crop and Light Crop‐Early Thinning determined the highest free terpene concentration at harvest; however, a significant interaction between treatment and year effects was observed. Total glycosylated terpenes at harvest were marginally affected by treatments (P = 0.063), and Light Crop‐Early Thinning determined the highest total glycosylated terpene concentration. Interestingly, total free terpenes were significantly affected by the treatments at the sampling before harvest (20‐21 Brix), when Light Crop‐Early Thinning determined a higher concentration of total free terpenes than High Crop. This result was consistently among the three years. Our study suggests that crop load management can be used as a tool to improve grape terpenes in scenarios (regions and/or seasons) where ripening is impaired and grapes cannot reach relatively high sugar levels. 

DOI:

Publication date: June 19, 2020

Issue: GIESCO 2019

Type: Article

Authors

Yevgen KOVALENKO, Ricco TINDJAU, Simone Diego CASTELLARIN

Wine Research Centre, The University of British Columbia, 2205 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T0C1,Canada

Contact the author

Keywords

Aroma, Grapevine, Ripening, Thinning, Yield

Tags

GiESCO 2019 | IVES Conference Series

Citation

Related articles…

Downscaling of remote sensing time series: thermal zone classification approach in Gironde region

In viticulture, the challenges of local climate modelling are multiple: taking into account the local environment, fine temporal and spatial scales, reliable time series of climate data, ease of implementation and reproducibility of the method. At the local scale, recent studies have demonstrated the contribution of spatialization methods for ground-based climate observation data considering topographic factors such as altitude, slope, aspect, and geographic coordinates (Le Roux et al, 2017; De Rességuier et al, 2020). However, these studies have shown questions in terms of the reproducibility and sustainability of this type of climate study. In this context, we evaluated the potential of MODIS thermal satellite images validated with ground-based climate data (Morin et al, 2020). Previous studies have been encouraging, but questions remain to be explored at the regional scale, particularly in the dynamics of the massive use of bioclimatic indices to classify the climate of wine regions. The results at the local scale were encouraging, but this approach was tested in the current study at the regional scale. Several objectives were set: 1) to evaluate the downscaling method for land surface temperature time series, 2) to identify regional thermal structure variations. We used weekly minimum and maximum surface temperature time series acquired by MODIS satellites at a spatial resolution of 1000 m and downscaled at 500 m using topographical variables. Two types of analyses were performed:

Impact of climate change on the viticultural climate of the Protected Designation of Origin “Jumilla” (SE Spain)

Protected Designation of Origin “Jumilla” (PDO Jumilla) is located in the Spanish provinces of Albacete and Murcia, in the South-eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, where most of the models predict a severe impact of climate change in next decades. PDO Jumilla covers an area of 247,054 hectares, of which more than 22,000 hectares

Impact of long term agroecological and conventional practices on subsurface soil microbiota in Macabeu and Xarel·lo vineyards

There is a growing trend on the transition from conventional to agroecological management of vineyards. However, the impact of practices, such as reduced-tillage, organic fertilization and cover crops, is not well-understood regarding the soil microbial diversity, and its relationship with the soil physicochemical properties in the subsurface depth near the rooting zone. Soil bacterial diversity is an important contributor towards plant health, productivity and response to environmental stresses. A field experiment was conducted by sampling subsurface soil bacterial community (NGS and qPCR) near to the root zone of Macabeu and Xarel·lo vineyards, located at the Penedes. 3 organic (ECO) and 3 conventional (CON) vineyards, with more than 10 years of respective management were sampled (n=5 each plot). ECO practices did not affect bacterial and fungal abundance but increased significantly the ammonium oxidizing bacteria and alpha-diversity (Inv.Simpson). Interestingly beta-diversity was significantly affected by the management strategy. ANOSIM-tests revealed a significative effect of the management (ecological vs conventional) and plot, on the soil microbial structure (ASV abundance). Main phyla depicted were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria, whose relative abundances were not affected by the management. EdgeR assay revealed a significant increase of Cyanobacteria and decrease of Gemmatimonadetes and Firmicutes phyla in ECO. Interestingly, the grapevine variety was not correlated with the soil microbial community structure. Mantel-test revealed an important correlation (Spearman) of some physicochemical parameters with the soil microbiota structure, in order of importance: texture, EC, pH Ca/Mg, Mg/P, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, SO42-, and OM. N-NH4 and NTK, which were higher in the ECO managed soils, did not correlated significantly with the soil microbiome population. The results revealed the importance of combining a deep physicochemical characterization of each replicate with the microbial diversity assessment to gain better insights on the relationship between soil microbiome and vineyard management.

Towards a regional mapping of vine water status based on crowdsourcing observations

Monitoring vine water status is a major challenge for vineyard management because it influences both yield and harvest quality. It is also a challenge at the territorial scale for identifying periods of high water restriction or zones regularly impacted by water stress. This information is of major importance for defining collective strategies, anticipating harvest logistic or applying for irrigation authorisation. At this spatial scale, existing tools and methods for monitoring vine water status are few and often require strong assumptions (e.g. water balance model). This paper proposes to consider a collaborative collection of observations by winegrowers and wine industry stakeholders (crowdsourcing) as an interesting alternative. Indeed, it allows the collection of a large number of field observations while pooling the collection effort. However, the feasibility of such a project and its interest in monitoring vine water status at regional scale has never been tested.

The objective of this article is to explore the possibility of making a regional map of vine water status based on crowdsourcing observations. It is based on the study of the free mobile application ApeX-Vigne, which allows the collection of observations about vine shoot growth. This information is easy to collect and can be considered, under certain conditions, as a proxy for vine water status. This article presents the first results obtained from the nearly 18,000 observations collected by winegrowers and wine industry stakeholders during 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons. It presents the vine shoot growth maps obtained at regional scale and their evolution over the three vintages studied. It also proposes an analysis of the factors that favoured the number of observations collected and those that favoured their quality. These results open up new perspectives for monitoring vine water status at a regional scale but above they provide references for other crowdsourcing projects in viticulture.

Legacy of land-cover changes on soil erosion and microbiology in Burgundian vineyards

Soils in vineyards are recognized as complex agrosystems whose characteristics reflect complex interactions between natural factors (lithology, climate, slope, biodiversity) and human activities. To date, most of the unknown lies in an incomplete understanding of soil ecosystems, and specifically in the microbial biodiversity even though soil microbiota is involved in many key functions, such as nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration. Soil biological properties are indicative of soil quality. Therefore, understanding how soil communities are related to soil ecosystem functioning is becoming an essential issue for soil strategy conservation. Here, we propose to assess the importance of land-cover history on the present-day microbiological and physico-chemical properties. The studied area was selected in the Burgundian vineyards (Pernand-Vergelesses, Burgundy, France) where land occupation has been reconstructed over the last 40 years. Soil samples were collected in five areas reflecting various land cover history (forest, vineyards, shifting from forest to vineyards). For each area, physico-chemical parameters (pH, C, N, P, grain size) were measured and DNA was extracted to characterize the abundance and diversity of microbial communities. The obtained results show significant differences in the five areas suggesting that present-day microbial molecular biomass and bacterial taxonomic is partly inherited from past land occupation. Over longer period of time, such study of land-uses legacies may help to better assess ecosystem recovery and the impact of management practices for a better soil quality and vineyards sustainability.