Monitoring arthropods diversity in the “Costières de Nîmes” viticulture landscape

Soil management plays a key role in climate change adaptation.

Extension of the growing season, compression of the annual growth cycle and higher frequency and severity of weather extreme events are consistent features of global warming. While mitigation of factors causing global warming is necessary in the medium-long term, wine growers need “ready to go” adaptation practices to counteract negative effects bound to climate change. This must be done in a sustainably way, meaning that remunerative yield, desired grape quality, low production cost and environment friendly solutions must be effectively merged. In this work, we will review contribution given over the last two decades prioritizing issues related to scion and rootstock choice, changes in vineyard floor management, new perception related to the use of irrigation in vineyards, adaptation practices aimed at decompress maturity, solutions to counteract or minimize damages due to late frost and sunburn and, lastly, some hints on how precision viticulture can help with all of this.

The production of grapes with a balanced composition is one of the main goals that agronomists and oenologists pursue to produce premium quality wines.

In addition to aroma compounds also protein composition strongly influences the quality of wines. Proteins of wine derive mainly from the plant Vitis vinifera and may be influenced by abiotic stress as well as fermentation conditions or fining. Additionally, fungal infections can affect the protein content as well by introducing fungal proteins or affecting grape protein composition. An infection of the vine with the plant pathogenic fungus Botrytis (B.) cinerea was shown to cause a degradation of proteins in the resulting wine. Moreover, it influences the foaming properties in sparkling wine.

Context and purpose of the study. Climate change is already threatening California vineyards, as they grapple with increasing extreme weather events and drier growing seasons.