Thermal history parameters drive changes in physiology and cold hardiness of young grapevine plants during winter

GONZALEZ ANTIVILO, FRANCISCO; PAZ, ROSALÍA CRISTINA; ECHEVERRIA, MARIELA; KELLER, MARKUS; TOGNETTI, JORGE; BORGO, ROBERTO; ROIG JUÑENT, FIDEL

AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Año: 2018 vol. 262 p. 227 - 236

0168-1923

Vitis vinifera is mainly cultivated in temperate areas, where seasons are well defined and winter conditions mightbe severe. To survive under these conditions during the dormant season, grapevines sense environmentalparameters to trigger different protective mechanisms that lead to cold hardiness (CH). Crop yield and sus-tainability will be determined according to the level of CH reached in each organ. Moreover, different cultivarsof V. vinifera exhibit different behavior throughout the dormant season, attaining a different status of CH.However, there is scarce information concerning how the same cultivar behaves under contrasting thermalenvironments. The aim of our research was to unveil how CH varies in trunks of the same cultivar under twocontrasting environments and define which are the main thermal and biochemical parameters involved in thisprocess. We submitted 2-year old plants of the same clone of cv. Malbec to two different thermal conditions:natural winter (control) and artificially warm winter (treatment). CH status, thermal and biochemical para-meters in trunks were measured periodically over the dormant season, and this experiment was repeated forthree years. Our results suggest that grapevine trunks subjected to a different environment reach dissimilar CHstatus, except at the end of winter. In addition, we determined that daily minimum temperature is the mainthermal parameter that drives changes in CH. Also, we found that the total soluble sugars have the greatestrelative weight in determining the CH compared with the other compounds evaluated. These results havepractical implications in the establishment of vineyards for new growing regions. Moreover, with risingminimum temperature predicted by climate change scenarios, grapevines may be more vulnerable to cold eventsduring the dormant season.