VitExpress, an open interactive transcriptomic platform for grapevine

Entre 1988 et 1995, dans la région Emilia-Romagna, deux zonages viticoles ont été complétés en zones assez differentes, soit géographiquement, soit par les conditions pedo-climatiques, soit par l’encépagement.

In the pursuit of increasing sustainability, climate change resiliency and independence of synthetic pesticides in agriculture, the interest of consumers and producers in organic and biodynamic farming is steadily increasing. This is in particular the case for the vitivinicultural industry in Europe, where more and more producers are converting from organic to biodynamic farming. However, clear scientific evidence showing that biodynamic farming improves vine physiology, vine stress resilience, berry or wine quality, or is more sustainable for the environment is still lacking although this issue has been addressed by several research teams worldwide.

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.

Grignolino, is a native Piedmont grape variety which well represents the historical and
enological identity of Monferrato, a territory between Asti and Casale Monferrato, included in the World Heritage List designated by UNESCO (1).

Genomic selection (GS) has emerged as a transformative tool for accelerating breeding programs by predicting the genetic potential of individuals using genome-wide markers.