Cold Hardiness Dynamics and Spring Phenology: Climate-Driven Changes and New Molecular Insights Into Grapevine Adaptive Potential

Abstract

Climate change has become a topic of increasing significance in viticulture, severely challenged by this issue. Average global temperatures are increasing, but frost events, with a large variability depending on geographical locations, have been predicted to be a potential risk for grapevine cultivation. Grape cold hardiness encompasses both midwinter and spring frost hardiness, whereas the avoidance of spring frost damage due to late budbreak is crucial in cold resilience. Cold hardiness kinetics and budbreak phenology are closely related and affected by bud’s dormancy state. On the other hand, budbreak progress is also affected by temperatures during both winter and spring. Genetic control of bud phenology in grapevine is still largely undiscovered, but several studies have recently aimed at identifying the molecular drivers of cold hardiness loss and the mechanisms that control deacclimation and budbreak. A review of these related traits and their variability in different genotypes is proposed, possibly contributing to develop the sustainability of grapevine production as climate-related challenges rise.

Vessel development in compound buds of interspecific hybrid grape induced by artificial deacclimation treatments

“…Kovaleski et al (2018) suggested that the growth of Vitis riparia was earlier and the deacclimation rates of V. riparia and Vitis amurensis were faster at low above‐freezing temperatures compared with those of V. vinifera varieties. The earlier bud growth of hardy species might be explained by the evolutionary necessity for rapid development during short growing seasons (Ferguson et al, 2014; De Rosa et al, 2021). ‘Yamasachi’ was developed by crossing ‘Seibel 13053’ as the seed parent with a local wild mountain grape (probably V. amurensis ) as the pollen parent.…”

Physiological and transcriptomic characterization of cold acclimation in endodormant grapevine under different temperature regimes

“…Although the leading threat posed to the survival of grapevine in winter is low temperatures that exceed the lethal threshold, an emerging issue is the prolonged period of warmth in fall because of climate change 45,58 . As the first potential consequence, cold acclimation, which is progressively induced by low above and below freezing temperatures, may be compromised.…”

Insight into Carbohydrate Metabolism and Signaling in Grapevine Buds during Dormancy Progression

“…In fact, for putative evolutionary reasons, deacclimation was observed to proceed much faster in wild species such as Vitis riparia and Vitis amurensis, routinely used by breeders to introduce resistant phenotypes in V. vinifera. Therefore, a better understanding of dormancy physiology and regulation also for these species is desirable [40].…”