Nitrogen uptake, translocation and YAN in berries upon water deficit in grapevines with contrasting stomatal sensitivity

In a context of reducing herbicide use, the most part of French vineyards are developing permanent grass cover crops on inter-rows alleys, while under the row chemical weeding remains the general case. The setting up of a controlled grass cover crop under the vine row could be a complementary alternative to mechanical weeding – which one is very restrictive – interesting from a technical and economical point of view. The present study aimed at assessing agronomic impacts of grass cover crop under the row in different climatic conditions and production objectives.

Water and heat stress impose new challenges to irrigation management in the Mediterranean areas. This reality has a major impact on the vineyard ecosystem, particularly on the scarce water resources of the Alentejo region (South Portugal). To mitigate this problem, irrigation management should focus on optimizing yield and fruit quality per volume of water applied. This work aims to discuss the use of predawn leaf water potential and soil water status relationships as a decision tool for irrigation management taking as basis data from a field trial where two deficit irrigation strategies were compared.

Polyphenols are present in a wide variety of plants and foods such as tea, cacao and grape1. An important sub-class of these compounds is the flavanols present in grapes and wines as monomers (e.g (+)-catechin or (-)-epicatechin), or polymers also called condensed tannins or proanthocyanidins. They have important antioxidant properties2 but their biosynthesis remains partly unknown. Some recent studies have focused on the role of glycosylated intermediates that are involved in the transport of the monomers and may serve as precursors in the polymerization mechanism3, 4. The global objective of this work is to identify flavanol glycosides in grapes or wines, describe their structure and determine their abundance during grape development and in wine.

Most consumers enjoy wine in moderation, however, there remains a minority that may develop risky drinking habits, potentially harming themselves and those around them. For the last fifteen years, a prime objective of the wine in moderation programme has been to educate and empower the wine sector and now for the first time, a central education tool has been developed, integrating the topic of moderate consumption horizontally in all wine activities. The entire wine value chain – from the producer to the salesperson to the restaurant service staff – can contribute to reduce harmful consumption and encourage responsible drinking patterns.

Multispectral unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been successfully applied in monitoring vine vegetative growth, however, there are still potential relationships between remote sensing vegetation indexes (vis) and vine condition or grape quality, so it is worthy a deeper investigation to make a better use of UAV. One of the purposes of the study is to find out vis that could denote the severity of downy mildew (DM), so that precise and differentiated control strategies would be adopted subsequently.