Enhancing plant defense: carbon dots for efficient spray-induced gene silencing 

Actually, many countries around the world are studying different strategies for adapting winegrowing regions to climate changes, focusing on a sustainable viticulture.

Valpolicella is a famous wine producing region in the province of Verona owing its fame above all to the production of two Protected Designation of Origins (PDOs) withered wines: Amarone and Recioto. In recent years, however, the wineries have been interested in the enhancement and qualitative increase of another PDO, Valpolicella Superiore. All the Valpolicella PDOs wines are produced with a unique grape blend, mainly Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella and a range of other minor varieties.

Micro(mi)RNAs are small non-coding RNAs that regulate several pathways and are widely recognised as key players in plant development, tissue differentiation, and many other important physiological processes, including plant adaptation to biotic and abiotic stresses. The release of plant genomes and the application of high throughput sequencing have considerably extended miRNA discovery across many species, including grapevine (Vitis spp.). Despite their relevance in plant development, functional studies in grapevine to clarify the function of miRNAs are not yet available. Through the grapevine genetic improvement platform IMPROVIT at CNR-IPSP (http://www.ipsp.cnr.it/en/thematics/turin-headquarter-thematics/improvit/), we developed integrated approaches to discover miRNA function in grapevine.

Le zonage vitivinicole présente toute une série d’applications pratiques. Son importance est en train d’augmenter, soit en fonction des moyens techniques chaque fois plus performants, qui rendent possible le développement des zonages de plus en plus intégrées, consistants et utiles, soit en fonction d’un marché de plus en plus mondialisé. L’article situe la contribution du zonage au niveau de la production vitivinicole et du développement du territoire.

Viticulture is facing many challenges due to climate change effects with increasingly attention to save resources, such as water, considering that drought events have been predicted to dramatically increase over the next future. Thanks to the -omics techniques, research pushed forward knowledge to deepen facets of drought response in diverse grapevine-rootstock combinations. However, the regulatory mechanisms orchestrating adaptation strategies during drought and recovery in grafted grapevines need further exploration. Herein, we combined ecophysiological, biochemical and molecular approaches to unravel drought and recovery-induced changes in potted Nebbiolo (NE) plants grafted onto three different rootstocks (3309, Kober5BB, Gravesac), by analysing root and leaf tissues.