New biotechnological approaches for a comprehensive characterization of AGL11 and its molecular mechanism underlying seedlessness trait in table grape

Egri Bikavér (Bull’s Blood) is one of the most remarkable Hungarian red wines on inland and foreign markets as well. From the end of the 70’s the quality of Egri Bikavér was decreasing continually due to mass production. The concept of production of quality wines became general in the mid 90’s again and it resulted in a new Origin Control System, for the first time that of Egri Bikavér in Hungary.

Wines expressing sensory characters that are representative of their varietal and geographical origins are highly sought after in today’s market. It is therefore of considerable technological interest to investigate the aromatic aspects of specific wines and to identify the odorous substances involved. This study investigated aroma chemical and sensory diversity of Durello DOC white

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.

New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs) have arisen with the objective of surmounting the constraints inherent in conventional breeding methodologies, thereby enhancing plant resilience against both biotic and abiotic stresses. To date the application of genome editing in grapevine is still limited by the necessity to overcome recalcitrance to produce embryogenic calli and to regenerate plants. In our studies, we developed a smart and versatile genetic transformation system carrying all the most promising features of different genome editing approaches. In specific, we joined the GRF-GIF expression to improve regeneration, the systemic movement of the editing transcripts through tRNA-like sequences (TLS) and the cisgenic-like approach to remove transgenes.

The region of viticultural production near Pinto Bandeira, Brazil, is being studied to define typical characteristics of wines locally produced.