Reviving grapevine massal selection in the context of climate change: A strategy for resilient vineyards in the 21st century

Abstract

Modern viticulture faces a critical paradox. The widespread adoption of clonal selection in the mid-20th century successfully standardized production and reduced viral incidence through sanitization and certification, but unintentionally created a genetically simplified vineyard landscape. Today, as climate change imposes unprecedented pressures (from heat waves to emerging pests) reduced intra-cultivar diversity can constrain adaptive responses to heat, drought, and emerging pests/pathogens.

This work synthesizes historical, genomic, and epigenetic evidence to argue that massal populations serve as dynamic genetic reservoirs, turning the “imprecision” of the past into the buffering capacity required for future vineyards. We synthesize evidence indicating that massal populations preserve rare alleles, structural variants, and adaptive trait combinations (including somatic variation and epigenetic modifications) that are systematically lost in clonal systems. Furthermore, we redefine the “clone” not merely as a genetic entity, but as a holobiont where the phenotype is modulated by the interaction between the genotype, the epigenome, and the virome.

To implement this diversity, we propose a new framework: “Precision Massal Selection”. By leveraging high-throughput genotyping tools (such as GBS and Amplicon-seq) and metagenomics (High-Throughput Sequencing for virome analysis), it is now possible to fingerprint massal populations and characterize their sanitary status with high resolution. This enables “surgical sanitation” (the removal of vines with detrimental viruses while preserving the adaptive complexity of the population). Precision Massal Selection represents the ultimate expression of precision viticulture, matching diverse populations to specific terroirs to ensure yield stability and stress tolerance without altering varietal identity.