New tools for a visual analysis of vineyard landscapes?

Global warming due to greenhouse gases (GHG) has become a serious worldwide concern. The new EU Green Deal aims t0 achieve GHG emissions reduction by at least 55% by 2030 and a climate neutral EU economy by 2050. The deal strongly encourages GHG reducing measures at local, national and European levels. The REDWine project will demonstrate the technical, economic and environmental feasibility of reducing by, at least, 31% of the CO2 eq. emissions produced in the winery industry value chain by utilizing biogenic fermentation CO2 for microalgae biomass production

Although there are detailed studies on the microbiota of Vitis vinifera L. grapes, little is known about the diversity of yeast communities present in non-vinifera Vitis ecosystems (i.e., grapes and spontaneously fermenting grape musts). Potentially scientific and/or enological valuable yeast strains from these non-vinifera Vitis ecosystems might never be isolated from V. vinifera L. Using a standard culture-dependent strategy, we studied the population of yeast species during initial stages of spontaneous fermentation of V. labrusca L. (Isabella) grape musts. Rare non-Saccharomyces yeast species were recognized in Isabella, including Candida azymoides, Pichia cecembensis, Candida californica, Candida bentonensis, Issatchenkia hanoiensis and Candida apicola.

Context and purpose of the study. To date over 3,000 grapevine accessions have been collected at Fondazione Edmund Mach (FEM).

The challenges of the century for viticulture relate to coping with climate change and the loss of biodiversity in a downturning socio-economic context. Now more than ever, the vine and wine industry needs to be resilient to maintain and ensure a future for its heritage. An innovation of capital importance, in line with recently published research, deals with developing new methods of training our inherited and newly planted vineyards to better withstand environmental variations such as drought and heatwaves but also unevenly distributed rains and temperatures.

Micro(mi)RNAs are small non-coding RNAs that regulate several pathways and are widely recognised as key players in plant development, tissue differentiation, and many other important physiological processes, including plant adaptation to biotic and abiotic stresses. The release of plant genomes and the application of high throughput sequencing have considerably extended miRNA discovery across many species, including grapevine (Vitis spp.). Despite their relevance in plant development, functional studies in grapevine to clarify the function of miRNAs are not yet available. Through the grapevine genetic improvement platform IMPROVIT at CNR-IPSP (http://www.ipsp.cnr.it/en/thematics/turin-headquarter-thematics/improvit/), we developed integrated approaches to discover miRNA function in grapevine.