Methodology of climate modelling using land surface temperature downscaling: case study case of Gironde (France)

Climate influence on grapevine physiology is prevalent and this influence is only expected to increase with climate change. Although governed by a general determinism, climate influence on grapevine physiology may present variations according to the terroir. In addition, these site-specific differences are likely to be enhanced when climate influence is studied using farm data. Indeed, farm data integrate additional sources of variation such as a varying representativity of the conditions actually experienced in the field. Nevertheless, there is a real challenge in valuing farm data to enable grape growers to understand their own terroir and consequently adapt their practices to the local conditions. In such a context, this article proposes a framework to site-specifically study climate influence on grapevine physiology using farm data. It focuses on improving the analysis of time series of weather data. The analytical framework includes the synchronization of time series using site-specific thermal indices computed with an original method called Extended Growing Degree Days (eGDD). Synchronized time series are then analyzed using a Bayesian functional Linear regression with Sparse Steps functions (BLiSS) in order to detect site-specific periods of strong climate influence on yield development. The article focuses on temperature and rain influence on grape yield development as a case study. It uses data from three commercial vineyards respectively situated in the Bordeaux region (France), California (USA) and Israel. For all vineyards, common periods of climate influence on yield development were found. They corresponded to already known periods, for example around veraison of the year before harvest. However, the periods differed in their precise timing (e.g. before, around or after veraison), duration and correlation direction with yield. Other periods were found for only one or two vineyards and/or were not referred to in literature, for example during the winter before harvest.

Grapevine is one of the world’s most important cultivated plants, domesticated from the wild vine over 11,000 years ago. The fungi associated with it are doubtless as old as the plant itself. Despite their co-evolution with the vine over the centuries, it was only with the invention of the microscope in the seventeenth century that fungi started to be recognised.

A rapid and reproducible microwave (MW)-assisted acid digestion protocol was developed to determine the elemental composition of grapevine bark samples using ICP-MS.

The sustainability certification ‘nachhaltig austria’ (www.sustainableaustria.com) has been offered to austrian wineries in an online version for 10 years and over 25% of the austrian wine-growing area is now certified. Since the 2022 harvest, ‘nachhaltig austria’ has automatically calculated the carbon footprint for each winery, per hectare of vineyard, per litre of bulk wine and per 0.75-litre bottle (poelz, w. And rosner, f.g. 2023). In last year’s publications and numerous presentations at national and international level, topics such as refilling glass bottles, lightweight glass bottles, renewable energy, … Etc.

The wine sector plays a significant role in the international agri-food industry, with the winemaking process leading to the generation of considerable amounts of by-products. Among these by-products, grape pomace, is one of the most abundant resources, mainly finding application in the production of distillates, fertilizers, and animal feed.