Application of nitrogen forms such as nitrate, urea, and amino acids effects on leaf and berry physiology and wine quality

The Maillard reaction (MR) is a non-enzymatic reaction between reducing sugars and amino acids, resulting in the production of volatile and flavour-active compounds.

L’AOC Ribeiro est la plus ancienne de Galice (NO de l’Espagne), avec une aire de production potentielle de 3.200 ha. Situé dans la région centrale de la vallée du Miño, le Ribeiro a un climat de tipe maritime tempéré qui se correspond avec la zone climatique II de Winkler.

Traditional drought tolerant varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Monastrell, and Syrah [1], have been used as parents in the grapevine breeding program initiated by the Instituto Murciano de Investigación y Desarrollo Agrario y Medioambiental (IMIDA) in 1997 [2]. This work presents the results of evaluating three new genotypes obtained from crosses between ‘Monastrell’ and ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ (MC16 and MC80) and between ‘Monastrell’ and ‘Syrah’ (MS104), comparing their performance under conditions of water scarcity and high temperatures with that of their respective parental varieties. For this purpose, the six genotypes were cultivated under controlled irrigation conditions (60% ETc) and rainfed conditions.

Regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) is a common viticultural practice for wine grape production. In addition to the potential improvement of water use efficiency, the adoption of this technique favors smaller canopies with higher levels of fruit sun exposure, enhancing quality attributes associated with red wine grapes such as smaller berries with higher tannins and anthocyanins. However, these quality attributes do not necessarily transfer to white wine grapes. The goal of this project was to assess whether partial rootzone drying (PRD) is more suited than RDI to grow high-end white wine grapes in arid climates, especially aromatic varieties, using Riesling as a model.

Vine diseases have a strong impact on vineyards sustainability, which in turns leads to strong economic consequences. Among those diseases, Flavescence dorée spreads quickly and is incurable, which led in France to the setup of a mandatory pest control implying the systematic use of pesticides and the prospection and uprooting of every infected plants. Remote sensing could be a very powerful tool to optimize prospection as it allows to produce quickly accurate maps over large areas. Recent studies have shown that high spatial resolution (10cm/pixel) multispectral images acquired from UAVs allow to map Flavescence dorée in vineyards using leaves discolorations [e.g. Albetis et al., Remote Sensing, 2017].