GiESCO 2019 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 GiESCO 9 GiESCO 2019 9 Early detection project – make a GTD infection visible without disease symptoms

Early detection project – make a GTD infection visible without disease symptoms

Abstract

Context and purpose of the study ‐ The presence of grapevine trunk diseases (GTDs) related pathogens leads to severe economic losses in wine‐growing regions all over the world. GTDs cause foliar discoloration, stunted growth, decline, sectorial and/or central necrosis of the trunk wood, and dieback, while the quality and the quantity of the grapes and therefore the wine production is reduced. The disease management is challenging for vine‐growers since the responsible fungi colonize wood tissues (and are therefore inaccessible for conventional fungicides) and the related symptoms occur mostly after a long period of latency. The aims of this project were first to distinguish between healthy and infected plants before the symptoms appear and second to document the efficacy of BASF ´s Tessior®‐ System for wound protection under field conditions.

Material and methods ‐ Long term field trials were established between 2014 and 2015 in Germany, France, Greece, and Italy, where each year the pruning wounds are treated with Tessior®. In order to increase the infection pressure, some of the vineyards are artificially inoculated with spores of Phaeomoniellachlamydospora and Botryosphaeriaceae species. The presence of P. chlamydospora – a pathogen causing esca‐disease – and Botryosphaeriaceae species – causing Botryosphaeria dieback – in grapevines was determined with an optimized protocol. Samples were collected by drilling a 5 mm diameter hole in the spurs below a pruning wound which was closed then with a wound sealant. The wood chips were lyophilized and afterwards homogenized using TissueLyser II (Qiagen). Total genomic DNA was extracted from the grapevine samples and quantitative Real‐Time PCR using TaqMan probes was performed.

Results ‐ This protocol has been proved to be fast and accurate to quantify the DNA amount of GTDs related pathogens in grapevine wood. Furthermore, the efficacy of Tessior® wound protectant has been verified showing significant reduction of infection with P. chlamydospora and Botryosphaeriaceae species.

DOI:

Publication date: June 22, 2020

Issue: GiESCO 2019

Type: Article

Authors

Szabina LENGYEL (1), Randall E. GOLD (2), Jochen FISCHER (1), Alexander YEMELIN (1), Eckhard THINES (1), Annett KÜHN (2)

(1) Institut für Biotechnologie und Wirkstoff-Forschung gGmbH, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße 56, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
(2) BASF SE, Agricultural Center, Speyerer Straße 2, D-67117 Limburgerhof, Germany

Contact the author

Keywords

Grapevine, Phaeomoniellachlamydospora, Botryosphaeriaceae, quantitative Real‐Time PCR, TaqMan, Tessior®

Tags

GiESCO 2019 | IVES Conference Series

Citation

Related articles…

Short-term relationships between climate and grapevine trunk diseases in southern French vineyards

[lwp_divi_breadcrumbs home_text="IVES" use_before_icon="on" before_icon="||divi||400" module_id="publication-ariane" _builder_version="4.19.4" _module_preset="default" module_text_align="center" module_font_size="16px" text_orientation="center"...

Assessing the climate change vulnerability of European winegrowing regions by combining exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity indicators

Winegrowing regions recognized as protected designations of origin (PDOs) are closely tied to well defined geographic locations with a specific set of pedoclimatic attributes and strictly regulated by legal specifications. However, climate change is increasingly threatening these regions by changing local conditions and altering winegrowing processes. The vulnerability to these changes is largely heterogenous across different winegrowing regions because it is determined by individual characteristics of each region, including the capacity to adapt to new climatic conditions and the sensitivity to climate change, which depend not only on natural, but also socioeconomic and legal factors. Accurate vulnerability assessments therefore need to combine information about adaptive capacity and climate change sensitivity with projected exposure to new climatic conditions. However, most existing studies focus on specific impacts neglecting important interactions between the different factors that determine climate change vulnerability. Here, we present the first comprehensive vulnerability assessment of European wine PDOs that spatially combines multiple indicators of adaptive capacity and climate change sensitivity with high-resolution climate projections. We found that the climate change vulnerability of PDO areas largely depends on the complex interactions between physical and socioeconomic factors. Homogenous topographic conditions and a narrow varietal spectrum increase climate change vulnerability, while the skills and education of farmers, together with a good economic situation, decrease their vulnerability. Assessments of climate change consequences therefore need to consider multiple variables as well as their interrelations to provide a comprehensive understanding of the expected impacts of climate change on European PDOs. Our results provide the first vulnerability assessment for European winegrowing regions at high spatiotemporal resolution that includes multiple factors related to climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity on the level of single winegrowing regions. They will therefore help to identify hot spots of climate change vulnerability among European PDOs and efficiently direct adaptation strategies.

Impact of changes in pruning practices on vine growth and yield

A gradual decline in vineyards has been observed over the past twenty years worldwide. This might be explained by the climate change, practices change or the increase of dieback diseases. To increase the longevity of vines, we studied the impact of different pruning strategies in four adult and four young vineyards located in France and Spain. In France, vineyards were planted with Cabernet franc on 3309C while Spanish trials were planted with Tempranillo grafted on 110R. Vegetative expression, yield, quality of berries and wood vessels conductivity were measured. The distribution of vegetative expression, yield and berry composition between primary and secondary vegetation were quantified. Finally, tomography was used to evaluate the implication of the treatments on sap flows.
First results show that i) the respectful pruning leads to an increase of 30 to 50% more secondary shoots than the aggressive pruning in France and between 15 and 20% in Spain, ii) there is no major effect on the yield over the first two years following the implementation of the new pruning practices, although the proportion of clusters from suckers is higher on the respectful pruning method. On young vines, the development of the trunk according to a respectful pruning leads to a loss of harvest 2 years after planting. This is due to the removal, on the future trunk, of the green suckers which carrying bunches. This operation carried out in spring rather than during winter pruning, would promote a better leaf / fruit balance when the plant comes into production, and could lead to better hydraulic conduction in the vessels of the trunk. Maintaining these trials for several years will provide more robust data to assess the impact of these practices on the vines over the long term.

An analytical framework to site-specifically study climate influence on grapevine involving the functional and Bayesian exploration of farm data time series synchronized using an eGDD thermal index

Climate influence on grapevine physiology is prevalent and this influence is only expected to increase with climate change. Although governed by a general determinism, climate influence on grapevine physiology may present variations according to the terroir. In addition, these site-specific differences are likely to be enhanced when climate influence is studied using farm data. Indeed, farm data integrate additional sources of variation such as a varying representativity of the conditions actually experienced in the field. Nevertheless, there is a real challenge in valuing farm data to enable grape growers to understand their own terroir and consequently adapt their practices to the local conditions. In such a context, this article proposes a framework to site-specifically study climate influence on grapevine physiology using farm data. It focuses on improving the analysis of time series of weather data. The analytical framework includes the synchronization of time series using site-specific thermal indices computed with an original method called Extended Growing Degree Days (eGDD). Synchronized time series are then analyzed using a Bayesian functional Linear regression with Sparse Steps functions (BLiSS) in order to detect site-specific periods of strong climate influence on yield development. The article focuses on temperature and rain influence on grape yield development as a case study. It uses data from three commercial vineyards respectively situated in the Bordeaux region (France), California (USA) and Israel. For all vineyards, common periods of climate influence on yield development were found. They corresponded to already known periods, for example around veraison of the year before harvest. However, the periods differed in their precise timing (e.g. before, around or after veraison), duration and correlation direction with yield. Other periods were found for only one or two vineyards and/or were not referred to in literature, for example during the winter before harvest.

Exploring resilience and competitiveness of wine estates in Languedoc-Roussillon in the recent past: a multi-level perspective

The Languedoc-Roussillon wineries are facing a decline in wine yields particularly PGI yields due to many factors. Climate change is just ones, but is expected to increase in the future. There is also structurally a large heterogeneity of yield profiles among terroirs, varieties and strategies. This work investigates the link between yield, competitiveness and resilience to explore how resilient winegrowers have been in the recent past. To this end two approaches have been combined; (i) an accountancy database analysis at estate scale and (ii) municipality level competitiveness analysis. A new resilience indicator that characterizes the capacity of an estate to absorb yield variation is also defined. The FADN database between 2000 and 2018 of ex-Languedoc-Roussillon (France) and other data are used to analyse the current situation and the past evolution of competitiveness and resilience by type of estate (type of farm: PGI and/or PDO & type of commercialization: bulk and/or bottles). The net margin, which defines competitiveness, is not correlated to yield for all types but depends on the type of commercialization and the level of specialisation. The resilience indicator shows that the net margin of estates specialized in PGI is particularly sensitive to yield declines. We also show that price evolutions seem to compensate the effect of yield losses for the majority of types. Municipality scale analysis shows the links between local pedoclimate, yield, commercialization strategies and price. Overlapping a PDO with a PGI does not always increase a municipality’s PGI competitiveness. It is difficult to make links between causes and effects due to the complexity of the wine production system. Production diversification may be a solution. Resorting to the two level of analysis helps resolving the data gap that is necessary to explore the links between yield and economic performance of the wine estates in the long term.