Precision viticulture: using on-board sensors to map vine variability and characterize vine trajectories

In recent years, the use of amphorae in winemaking has become more frequent, symbolizing a return to the origins of vinification to broaden the availability of wines with different style.

Monferrato is a sub region of Piedmont featuring an endless series of hills which have been moulded through the centuries by laborious farming. Vineyards have always been the protagonists of Monferrato landscape. Asti vineyards have been well-known since Roman times and Pliny the Elder mentions them.

Little research has been undertaken to investigate the main contributors to the aroma of Syrah wines from the cool northern part of the Rhone valley despite the historical importance of this cultivar for this wine region. The aim of the present work was to study the key odorants of Crozes-Hermitage wines made

The study was carried out in 2006 with Merlot grapes from vines grown using the trellis system, where four treatments were compared with different levels of water stress.

The favorable effect of symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) has been known and studied since the 60s. Nowadays, many companies took the chance to start promoting and selling commercial inoculants of AMF, in order to be used as biofertilizers and encourage sustainable biological agriculture. However, the positive effect of these commercial biofertilizers on plant growth is not always demonstrated, especially under field conditions. In this study, we used a commercial inoculum on newly planted grapevines of a local cultivar grafted on a common rootstock R110. We followed the physiological status of vines, growth and productivity and functional biodiversity of soil bacteria during the first and second years of 20 inoculated with commercial inoculum bases on Rhizophagus irregularis and Funeliformis mosseaeAMF at field planting time and 20 non-inoculated control plants. All the parameters measured showed a neutral to negative effect on plant growth and production. The inoculated plants always presented lower values of photosynthesis, growth and grape production, although in some cases the differences did not reach statistical significance. On the contrary, the inoculation supposed an increase of the bacterial functional diversity, although the differences were not statistically significant either. Several studies show that the effect of inoculation with AMF is context-dependent. The non-favorable effects are probably due to inoculation ineffectiveness under complex field conditions and/or that, under certain conditions, AMF presence may be a parasitic association. This puts into question the effectiveness of its application in the field. Therefore, it is recommended to only resort to this type of biofertilizer when the cultivation conditions require it (e.g., very low previous microbial diversity, foreseeable stress due to drought, salinity, or lack of nutrients) and not as a general fertilization practice.