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

The analysis of polyfunctional thiols in wine is challenging due to their low abundance and instability within a complex matrix. However, volatile thiols are highly aroma-active, making their accurate quantification in wine at low concentrations crucial [1].

Epidermal Patterning Factors are a class of cysteine rich peptides known to be involved in many developmental processes. The role of EPF1, EPF2 and EPFL9 in controlling leaf stomata formation has been well described in model plants and cereals, and recently also in grapevine, while little is known about their activity in other organs. The aim of our study is to investigate whether VviEPFL9-2 can have a specific biological function in grapevine roots, where it resulted to be expressed. As grapevine is cultivated in the form of a grafted plant, we focused our study on the commonly used rootstock Kober 5BB (Vitis berlandieri x Vitis riparia). VviEPFL9-2 was edited in Kober 5BB plants using Agrobacterium tumefaciens transformation of embryogenic calli and the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The phenotypic evaluation in greenhouse indicated that, as expected, the leaves of knock-out (KO) plants have a significant lower stomatal density compared to WT, associated with a lower stomatal conductance.

The first demonstration of the interest of carbon isotope composition of sugars in grapevine, as an integrated indicator of vineyard water status, dates back to 2000 (Gaudillère et al., 1999; Van Leeuwen et al., 2001). Thanks to the isotopic discrimination of Carbon that takes place during plant photosynthesis, under hydric stress conditions, it is possible to accurately estimate the photosynthetic activity. Ever since, δ13C has been widely applied with success to zonation, terroir studies and vine physiology research, but is still not widely used by viticulturists. This is quite astonishing by considering the impact of global warming on viticulture and the need to improve water management, that would justify a widespread use of δ13C.
The lack of private laboratories proposing the analysis, the cost of the technology, as well as the long analytical delays, have been detrimental to its development. Some laboratories tried to overcome the analytical difficulties of isotopic analysis by using fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, as a fast and cheap alternative to the official OIV method (IRMS). These claimed FTIR models have never been published or peer reviewed and cannot be considered robust. In this work, thanks to the recent acquisition of IRMS technology, new modern and robust applications of δ13C for viticulture are proposed. This includes the use of the analysis to make parcel separations at harvesting, the possibility to increase the precision of hydric stress cartography and the potential cost reduction when compared with Scholander pressure bomb analysis.

Water resource is a major limiting factor impacted by climate change that threatens grapevine production and quality. Understanding the ecophysiological mechanisms involved in the response to water deficit is crucial to select new varieties more drought tolerant. A major bottleneck that hampers such advances is the lack of methods for measuring fine functioning traits on thousands of plants as required for genetic analyses. This study aimed at investigating how water deficit affects the trade-off between carbon gains and water losses in a large panel representative of the Vitis vinifera genetic diversity. 250 genotypes were grown under 3 watering scenarios (well-watered, moderate and severe water deficit) in a high-throughput phenotyping platform.

The hill Somló looks like a huge island wich jumps out of the see, a few kilometers away from the slope of Bakony highland and on the edge of the Hungarian small plane.