Model-assisted analysis of climate change and terroir effects on grape quality in China

Abstract

Climate is known as an essential factor for grapevine phenology, yield and quality, and climate change may challenge or open new opportunities of the sustainability of wine grape production. The wine industry in China spreads across a wide range of regions with huge diversity of climate patterns, while their climate change trends as well as the influences on grapevine growth and berry quality remain largely unknown. To fill these gaps, we have developed a series of modeling work, with historical long-term climate records, as well as field observation of phenology and berry quality data, to illustrate the regional climate change trends over the last 60 years in most of the wine regions in China. In addition, a phenology model able to precisely predicts the sugar-based maturity dates was developed suitable for the continental climate conditions in China, and then this maturity model was used to evaluate the risk of freezing injury before harvest with diverse cultivars of different precocities in different growing regions. Moreover, berry quality models, such as berry sugars and anthocyanins were also developed to evaluate the responses of different cultivars in the past and future climate scenarios. Finally, vineyard zoning was proposed based on an integrative model framework by considering both the current climate conditions as well as climate projections in the futures, so that providing a solid foundation for sustainable development of viticulture.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially funded by the Agricultural Breeding Project of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NXNYYZ202101), the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFE0109500), National Natural Science Foundation of China (U20A2041 and 42405198), CAS Youth Interdisciplinary Team (JCTD-2022-06), CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research (YSBR-093), Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund (No. 20453) and Yunnan Provincial Key Research and Development Program (202403AP140029). It is also conducted as part of the LIA INNOGRAPE II International Associated Laboratory.