Genetic determinism of grapevine development stages as a tool for the adaptation to climate change

A 3-year study was conducted in the Vaud vineyard (Switzerland) to evaluate the effects of « terroir » on the ecophysiology and fruit compostion of Vitis vinifera L. cv.

Agricultural productivity must promote management systems that incorporate sustainability principles, and viticulture is no exception.

Current environmental, ecological and economic issues require a better vineyard production management. In fact, a poor use of fertilizing could lead to harmful impact on environment. Another issue concerns the cultures themselves which couldn’t use fertilizers efficiently, leading to a loss of income or too much expense for farmers. Presently, estimation of fertilization’s needs is realized by the laboratory analysis of leaves selected through a random sampling. The present study aims at optimizing fertilization’s management by using a map of biophysical parameters estimated from satellite images.

The development and application of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)/Cas (CRISPR-associated protein) technologies have revolutionized genome editing in plants due to its simplicity, high efficiency, and versatility. As an economically important fruit crop worldwide, grapevine genome editing using CRISPR/Cas technologies has also been reported these years. Here we introduce the development briefly of the most popular CRISPR/Cas9 system and also the state-of-the-art CRISPR technologies developed so far. Moreover, we summarize CRISPR/Cas9-mediated applications for gene functional study and trait improvement in grapevine.

Context and purpose of the study. Climate changes pose the need to develop new grapevine varieties and rootstocks that are more tolerant to stress and diseases.