Grape vine varieties Shiraz and Grenache differ in their stomatal response to VPD: apparent links with ABA physiology and gene expression in leaf tissue

Abstract

Two cultivars of Vitis vinifera L., namely Grenache and Shiraz, have been described as having near‐isohydric and near‐anisohydric responses respectively to soil water stress (Schultz, Plant Cell and Environment, 26, 1393–1405, 2003). Given that contrast in sensitivity to soil water, a question arises as to whether atmospheric moisture stress will elicit similar differences. The present study was undertaken to investigate this issue by comparing stomatal responses in these same two cultivars to contrasting vapour pressure deficit (VPD). Test material included field grape vines in the Barossa Valley and pot‐grown vines under partial shade in Adelaide. Our experiments showed that the same isohydric/anisohydric distinction as described by Schultz (2003) is apparent in leaf responses to atmospheric moisture stress. In the more isohydric cultivar, Grenache, stomatal conductance is more responsive to changes in VPD. This heightened sensitivity (compared with Shiraz) appears to be associated with higher levels of abscisic acid (ABA) in Grenache xylem sap. Expression studies on the key genes in the ABA biosynthetic pathway indicate that regulation of the V.v.nced1 gene expression in leaf tissue, but not in the root tissues, is associated with the changes in the xylem sap ABA. Moreover, the two cultivars (Grenache and Shiraz) differed with respect to both scale and time course of those responses. We conclude that these two Vitis vinifera cultivars do indeed differ significantly in the way that they respond to potentially stressful atmospheric conditions, and that ABA physiology is a key process in these contrasting responses. An understanding of such mechanisms, including the relative importance of roots and shoots in determining vine response to abiotic stress, is highly relevant to irrigation scheduling, and to management of associated variation in vineyard productivity across diverse environments.

Involvement of Abscisic Acid in the Coordinated Regulation of a Stress-Inducible Hexose Transporter (VvHT5) and a Cell Wall Invertase in Grapevine in Response to Biotrophic Fungal Infection

“…In order to determine whether these stress treatments were activating ABA biosynthesis in the plant tissues, we examined the key rate-limiting steps in the plant ABA biosynthetic pathway catalyzed by ZEP and NCED (Liotenberg et al, 1999). Previous studies on grapevine leaves have showed that water stress specifically induced VvNCED1 but not VvZEP, and this is associated with an increase in bulk leaf ABA concentrations (Soar et al, 2004(Soar et al, , 2006. Our analysis shows that powdery and downy mildew infection and wounding also led to rapid and significant increases in VvNCED1 expression, but no consistent pattern in VvZEP expression was observed (Fig.…”

Actinidia deliciosaleaf stomatal characteristics in relation to benzyladenine incubation periods in micropropagated expiants

“…Blackman & Davies (1983) postulated that cytokinins reverse the stomatal closing promoted by aBa application; subsequently, Incoll & Jewer (1985) verified that when kinetin was applied to Anthephorapubescens, stomatal opening was promoted. other proof of cytokinin effects on stomatal movement has also been published (Mansfield & McAinsh 1995;Soar et al 2006). …”

Water Balance, Hormone Homeostasis, and Sugar Signaling Are All Involved in Tomato Resistance toTomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus

“…Generally, anisohydric plants display lower amounts of, or sensitivity to, the stress hormone ABA (Loveys and During, 1984;Loewenstein and Pallardy, 1998;Tardieu and Simonneau, 1998;Soar et al, 2006). Low levels of ABA can lead to high levels of SA due to antagonistic interactions between these two phytohormones (Audenaert et al, 2002; Mohr and Cahill, 2007;de Torres Zabala et al, 2009;Jiang et al, 2010).…”