What triggers the decision to ripen 

Somatic embryogenesis (SE) has been used in a variety of biotechnology applications such as virus elimination, cryopreservation, induced mutagenesis and genetic transformation. The SE induction process may cause DNA alterations and ploidy changes, which may provide a source of genetic variability useful for the improvement of agronomic characteristics of plants. This research aims at investigating the spontaneous alterations of the genome in grapevine plants regenerated through SE. Regenerants obtained from different embryogenic events from three different grapevine genotypes (Catarratto, Frappato and Nero d’Avola) were analysed.

A Região Demarcada do Douro, oferece uma diversidade geográfica, climática e biológica (grande número de castas em cultivo) extremamente grande e complexa, originando vinhas

The “Anjou Terroirs” programme aims at bringing the necessary scientific basis for a ratio­nal and reasoned exploitation of the technical itinerary of the terroir. The scale study is 1/12500. For the mapping, many parameters, such as the granulometry or the depth of soil are observed to each point of caracterisation.

Elemental composition, measured as the concentrations of different elements present in a given tissue at a given time point, is a key indicator of vine health and development. While elemental composition and other high-throughput phenotyping approaches yield tremendous insight into the growth, physiology, and health of vines, costs and labor associated with repeated measures over time can be cost-prohibitive. Recent advances in handheld sensors that measure hyperspectral reflectance patterns of leaf tissue may serve as an affordable proxy for other types of phenotypic data, including elemental composition. Here, we ask if reflectance patterns of dried Chambourcin leaf tissue from an experimental grafting vineyard can predict the known elemental composition of those leaves.

Biofilms are sessile microbial communities whose lifestyle confers specific properties. They can be defined as a structured community of bacterial cells enclosed in a self-produced polymeric matrix and adherent to a surface and considered as a method of immobilisation. Immobilised microorganisms offer many advantages for industrial processes in the production of alcoholic beverages and specially increasing cell densities for a better management of fermentation rates.