Grapevine breeding programs have traditionally focused on the development of seedless table grape cultivars combining high berry quality with resistance to major pathogens, in response to both market demand and sustainability goals.
The accelerating effects of climate change on perennial crops demand transformative approaches in plant biotechnology, particularly for grapevine (Vitis vinifera), a species historically constrained by limited genetic improvement and low transformation efficiency.
Conserving and exploiting intra-varietal diversity in ancient grapevine varieties is essential to secure their future use whilst preserving the genetic heritage of historical winegrowing regions.
Grapevine breeding is fundamentally constrained by long generation times, perennial growth and clonal propagation.
At the beginning of 2024, an outbreak of Xylella fastidiosa subsp. fastidiosa (Xff), ranked among the twenty priority pests, was intercepted on Vitis vinifera in Apulia (Cornara et al., 2025), well-known to be the causal agent of Pierce’s Disease (PD) of grapevine in California
The development of disease-resistant grapevine cultivars (PIWI) has become a key strategy to reduce fungicide inputs, increase climate resilience, and meet regulatory and societal demands for sustainable viticulture.
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.
Grape breeding has benefited from a long and worldwide effort to develop new varieties able to control major diseases such as downy mildew, caused by Plasmopara viticola, and powdery mildew, caused by Erysiphe necator.
In Korea, summer rainfall and comparatively less favorable growing conditions than major grape-producing countries have influenced the direction of table grape breeding.
The Cornell Grapevine Breeding Program (CGBP), based at Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, New York, develops new wine grape cultivars adapted to the northeastern United States (US) and other cool-climate regions.
Genetic variation is the cornerstone of plant breeding. In traditional grapevine cultivars, intra-varietal diversity has declined due to decades of selection for elite genotypes, shifting breeding goals,
The University of Minnesota grape breeding program is releasing three new cold-hardy, seedless table grapes. MN1296 (marketed as EmberGloÔ),
The ‘Défi Clé Vinid’Occ’ is a multidisciplinary research program—supported by the Occitanie Region and led by the University of Montpellier—which aims at responding to the major challenges faced by the wine
One possible strategy to face the increasing challenges of climate change in viticulture is the breeding of new climate-resilient grapevine varieties using modern breeding techniques, e.g. marker-assisted-selection.
Past VitisGen projects (VitisGen, 2012-2017, and VitisGen2, 2017-2022) generated groundbreaking technologies for the grapevine breeding community, from low-cost DNAmarker platforms to advances in computer vision phenotyping.