Freeze-thaw temperature oscillations promote increased differential gene expression during grapevine bud dormancy

Ground water in the interior valleys of California is contaminated with nitrates derived from agricultural activities, primarily the over-fertilization of crops.

The grape maturation process is being affected by the consequences of global climate change and, as a result, there is a gap at harvest time between the technological maturity of grapes (mostly the concentration of sugar and acids) and its phenolic quality. Due to this gap, the wines elaborated using those grapes show a non-adequate phenolic composition, which results in defects on its color and astringency characteristics. Astringency is mainly related to the salivary protein precipitation because of the interaction not only with wine flavanols but also with other wine phenolics, such as flavonols or different pigments.

Evidence for a specific effect of soil mineral composition on wine character is largely anecdotal. However, soil potassium supply to the vine must be properly balanced between deficiency and excess for good fruit quality.

To face emerging competition and challenges, wine producers globally rely on precision viticulture (PV) solutions to boost productivity, enhance quality, increase profitability, and reduce the environmental impact of vineyards. Current pv methods predominantly use multispectral sensor data from several platforms (satellites or vineyard installations). However, these applications generally use data analysis strategies lacking physiological grapevine support.

Erysiphe necator and Plasmopara viticola are the causal agents of powdery and downy mildew on grapevines, leading to significant economic losses. Numerous chemical treatments are applied to control these diseases, leading to environmental problems and the appearance of resistance to these products. Therefore, the study of new strategies to achieve the objectives of sustainable development is a priority. In this sense, the use of new varieties resistant to these diseases may be an option of interest. The objective of this work was to analyze the degree of resistance of 9 varieties with downy mildew resistance genes (Rpv3 and/or Rpv12), four of which also carry a powdery mildew resistance gene (Ren 1) by in vitro inoculation assays.