Natural genetic variation for grapevine phenology as a tool for climate change adaptation

VAN HOUTEN, S; BERGAMIN, D; MUÑOZ, CJ; SOLA, C; BREE, L; LIJAVETZKY, D

Applied Sciences

MDPI

Lugar: Basel; Año: 2020 vol. 10

2076-3417

Grapevine phenology is likely to be modified by climate change, particularly by the increase of temperatures that are expected to affect grape attributes for red wines production. Besides the exiting oenological and viticultural approaches, the deep exploration of the current intra-cultivar genetic variability to select late-ripening genotypes emerges as an interesting alternative. In the present work, we have analyzed the natural genetic variation for phenology and agronomic traits among 21 ?Malbec? clones and we demonstrated that fruiting cuttings are a useful tool for the analysis of such variation in ?Malbec?. Several clones could be distinguished by agronomic traits like berry number or cluster weight, and mainly by phenology characteristics like the length of the phase between flowering and veraison, which reached more than 16 days between early and late clones. These results encourage us to deeply explore the existing ?Malbec? clone collections in searching for genotypes with delayed phenology, and thus with the potential to maintain some required characteristics under warm conditions.