Soil electrical resistivity, a new and revealing technique for precision viticulture

In northern cold climate conditions, chilling requirement fulfillment in dormant grapevine buds is slowed or stopped by subzero temperatures impacting the transcriptional processes needed to complete chilling requirement. Cabernet Franc and Reisling in Geneva, NY were used to determine the impact of natural oscillating temperatures on grapevine bud transcriptional activity during light and dark periods of a two-week period in January with fluctuating diurnal winter temperatures. Cabernet Franc and Reisling bud samples were collected at 32 time points during the natural vineyard temperature cycle at 6:00 (dark), 14:00 (light) and 18:00 (dark) hours) to monitor gene expression in consecutive freezing and non-freezing temperature oscillations. Genotype, light and dark, and temperature oscillations conditions were explored.

According to the last IPCC report, the scale of recent climate changes are unprecedented over many centuries. Each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade since 1850. Projections for the future foresee that temperature could reach +3.3°C to +5.7°C under the most pessimistic scenario. It is also projected that every region will face more concurrent and multiple changes in climatic impact-drivers. The frequency of extreme climate events is also likely to increase, as well as the occurrence of indirect constraints. These evolving climatic conditions are alrealdy affecting and will continue to affect the suitability of traditional wine grape production areas, but also create opportunities in new locations.

Grape quality potential for wine production is strongly influenced by environmental parameters such as climate and agronomic factors such as rootstock. Several studies underline the effect of rootstock on vegetative growth of the scions [1] and on berry composition [2, 3] with an impact on wine quality. Rootstocks are promising agronomic tools for climate change adaptation and in most grape-growing regions the potential diversity of rootstocks is not fully used and only a few genotypes are planted. Little is known about the effect of rootstock genetic variability on the aromatic composition in wines; thus further investigations are needed.

This study presents the preliminary results obtained in 2022, of the evaluation of three new crossbreed winegrape genotypes and their parental varieties, grown under controlled irrigation (60% ETc) and rainfed conditions in a wine-growing area with scarcity of water and high temperatures (Murcia, southeast Spain). The genotypes MC16 and MC80 were obtained from crosses between the varieties ‘Monastrell’ and ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’, and MS104 from crosses between ‘Monastrell’ and ‘Syrah’ [1]. The objective of this study was to analyse the physiological response and vegetative development of the 6 genotypes under the two irrigation conditions, and to study their effect on the content of soluble sugars and chlorophyll in the leaf.

Brandy de Jerez (BJ) is a spirit drink made exclusively from spirits and wine distillates and is characterized by the use of casks for aging that previously contained Sherries. The quality and sensory complexity of BJ depend on the raw materials and some factors: grape variety, conditions during processing the wine and its distillation, as well as the aging in the cask. Therefore, the original compounds of the grapes from which it comes are of great interest (1 y 2) being in most cases the Airén variety. Their relationship with the quality of the musts and the wines obtained from them has been studied (3) and varies each year of harvest depending on the weather conditions (4).