Drought responses in Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc grapevine cultivars: Mechanistic insights and varietal contrasts

This study assessed the suitability of grapevine growing in three DOs (Empordà, Pla de Bages and Penedès) of Catalonia (NE Spain) over the 21st century. For this purpose, an estimation of water needs and agroclimatic and phenological indicators was made. Climate change impacts were estimated at 1 km pixel resolution using temperature and precipitation projections from several general circulation models (GCM) and two climate change scenarios: RCP 4.5 (stabilization scenario) and RCP 8.5 (worst-case scenario). Potential crop evapotranspiration (following FAO procedure) and a daily water balance considering soil water holding capacity were used to estimate actual evapotranspiration of vines and, finally, water needs. Dynamics would be similar in the three DOs studied although the magnitude of impact differs. Water needs would be 2 and 3 times greater (ranging from 0 to more than 1500 m3/ha) than current water needs at both climate change scenarios. Moreover, blooming date would advance from 3 to 6 weeks, harvest date from 1 to 2.5 months, resulting in growing cycles from 10 to 80 days shorter. It should also be noted that frost risk would decrease from 6 to 76%, the number of days with temperatures above 30ºC during ripening would rise from 48 to 500% and tropical nights (minimum temperature >20ºC) at ripening would increase from 28 to 150%, depending on the scenario and the DOs. The impacts of climate change in the three DOs could result in significant limitations for grapevine cultivation and wine production if adaptive strategies are not applied. This result could serve as a basis for the design of specific and particular adaptation strategies to improve and maintain vineyards in the DOs studied and could be extrapolated to similar DOs and regions.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) that is the main cause of visual impairment and blindness in Europe which is characterized by damages in the central part of the retina, the macula. This degenerative disease of the retina is mainly due to the molecular mechanism involving the production and secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEF). Despite therapeutic advances thanks

Bois noir is the most widespread phytoplasma grapevine disease in Europe. It is associated with ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma solani’. In symptomatic grapevines cv. ‘Zweigelt’ infected with ‘Ca. P. solani’ compared with uninfected grapevines, metabolic pathways associated with phosphorylated sugar production were induced both at the transcriptional level and at the level of activity of the corresponding enzymes (Dermastia et al., 2021, Int. J. Mol. Sci. 22: 3531). In particular, the expression of gene coding for phosphoglucoisomerase was upregulated, resulting in increased phosphoglucoisomerase enzyme activity.

An experiment was carried out to test the relevance of using satellite images (NDVI) to define locations of plant monitoring systems.

Terroir zoning studies have to manage the heterogeneity and complexity of the landscape properties and processes. The varying geology is one of the main landscape properties conditioning the spatial variability of terroirs.