Viticulture
22 April 2025
Composting vine leaves to reduce the primary inoculum of Plasmopara viticola in the vineyard?
Downy mildew caused by the oomycete Plasmopara viticola is one of the most damaging diseases affecting vineyards. The current issues surrounding the use of plant protection products are prompting the ...
7 April 2025
Applications of biochar in viticulture
In the past decade, what is now known as ‘biochar’ has been widely endorsed for a variety of industrial applications and has seen exponential interest in agronomic uses. However, its use remains limited in the viticulture sector, particularly ...
17 February 2025
The intravarietal diversity of sugar concentration in Merlot depends more on late evaporation than sugar loading
The rise in temperature associated with climate change can lead to excessive sugar concentrations at harvest. To maintain varietal typicity in the future, more resilient genotypes need to be identified within clonal ...
17 February 2025
Impact of training system, soil management, and soil water holding capacity on vine water status in the Cognac production area under climate change
With climate change, the risk of water deficits in vineyards is tending to increase, potentially affecting yield and grape quality potential. In this study, the Lebon et al. (2003) soil water balance model was ...
14 February 2025
Characterization of sugar accumulation dynamics in grapes and the factors influencing this process at local scale
Determining the sugar concentration in grape berries is essential for winegrowers, as it enables them to estimate the alcohol content in the final wine and optimize the harvest date. In the face of climate change and rising ...
12 February 2025
Respectful pruning in young vineyards: impact on growth and potential implications
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in grapevine pruning. This growing focus has emerged as a response to the long-term issues that poor pruning practices have caused in vineyards. Decades of ...
12 February 2025
Improving the success rate of dead vine replacement
Dead vine replacement can be a very costly exercise in the event of failure, especially given that replacement vines take longer to reach full production than young plants from a completely replanted plot. Success, ...
31 January 2025
A meta-analysis of the ecological impacts of viticultural practices on soil biodiversity
Soil quality and adequate soil management are key levers for sustainable viticulture. Until now, a global and comprehensive analysis of the impact of viticultural practices on soil biodiversity was lacking. We conducted a ...
22 January 2025
Impact assessment of cover crops on the risk of frost in the Anjou vineyard
The increase in the frequency of spring frosts and the rising precocity of the phenological stages of the vine have been threatening the wine production in the Anjou vineyard for several years (Petitjean et al., 2022). In addition to ...
20 January 2025
Part 1: Is there a correlation between the diameter of the pruning wound and the length of the desiccation cone?
While pruning is an age-old and essential practice for managing yields and keeping vines in production for as long as possible, many questions remain unanswered about its role in vine physiology, particularly with regard to the formation of ...
20 January 2025
Part 2: How long to form the desiccation cones of the chicot and when should be removed the chicot?
Leaving a chicot when pruning is now a widespread practice in vineyards, but the question remains as to when this zone of dead wood can be “re-pruned”. Can it be removed the year after pruning? Should you wait for a full ...
8 January 2025
Wrapping permanent cordon arms tightly around the cordon wire negatively impacts vine performance
In certain winegrowing regions, it is a common practice to wrap canes very tightly around the cordon wire during the establishment of permanent cordon arms. This method of training may result in a constriction of the ...
20 December 2024
Exploring grapevine canopy management: effects of removing main leaves or lateral shoots before flowering
This study highlights the physiological effects of pre-flowering leaf removal from the fruiting zone of the Swiss white grape variety Petite Arvine, which is rich in varietal thiols. Pre-flowering removal of main leaves ...
19 December 2024
Role of the rootstock and its genetic background in plant mineral status assessed by petiole analysis and deficiency symptoms
Rootstocks are potentially important levers of adaptation in the context of climate change. In this study, we investigated the effect of the rootstock and its genetic background on plant mineral status. The scion, the ...
9 December 2024
Effect of biodynamic preparations 500 and 501 on vine and berry physiology, pedology and the soil microbiome
The increasing interest in organic and biodynamic wine production is driven by a desire for sustainability and reduced reliance on synthetic inputs. As of 2021, organic viticulture accounted for 6.4 % of the global vineyard ...
29 November 2024
Vineyard Canopy Management: Timing of the First Hedge-Trimming
Delaying the date of the first hedge-trimming (or ‘tip-pruning’) is of limited technical value in vineyard canopy management. The impact of the delay on lateral shoot growth and must composition remains marginal ...
22 November 2024
Effectiveness of hedges and nets in reducing the risk of drift and exposure of local residents during vineyard spraying: initial results
IFV and INRAE have used the EoleDrift test rig to measure the drift reduction performance of two types of plot modification (shrub hedges and windbreak nets). Whatever the sprayer used and the type of drift measured ...
22 November 2024
COPPEREPLACE. Copper applications in organic viticulture, are a real challenge today. Part 2. Technical and practical implementation
In grape and wine production, one of the main relevant and recurrent diseases is downy mildew, caused by the fungus Plamospara viticola. It is frequently present in wine production worldwide, with a significant high annual incidence ...
31 October 2024
Drought tolerance in grapevine involves multiple interacting physiological mechanisms
The past decade has produced some major advances in our understanding of how grapevines regulate their water use and tolerate drought. Numerous traits that are important for conferring drought tolerance have been identified ...
17 October 2024
Study of pesticide-use pathways during the agroecological transition of DEPHY-Vigne farms
Created in 2010, the DEPHY-Vigne network is formed of winegrowers who are committed to reducing the use of pesticides, and thus aims to demonstrate that such a change is possible using currently available techniques. The ...
8 October 2024
Gradient of grapevine varietal susceptibility to esca
To study varietal susceptibility to esca, we recently analyzed the annual incidence of leaf symptoms on an experimental plot (2017–2023) (Gastou et al., 2024) and from a trunk-disease monitoring network in ...
30 September 2024
COPPEREPLACE 1. Copper applications in organic viticulture are a real challenge today.
Part 1 - Scientific Activities
In grape and wine production, one of the main relevant and recurrent diseases is downy mildew, caused by the fungus Plamospara viticola. It is frequently present in wine production worldwide, with a significant high annual incidence ...
25 September 2024
Resumption of the planting of grapevine varieties in France, referred to as "disease-resistant"
This article investigates the beginning of the adoption of a new generation of “resistant” grapevine varieties (RVs) in France, in a European context in which varietal innovation has become more and more dynamic over the last thirty years.
13 September 2024
History of breeding programmes for fungus resistant grape varieties in Europe, France and the Occitanie region
Fungus tolerant grape varieties (RVs) are emerging as a promising solution in a viticultural context characterised by growing societal, environmental, and regulatory tensions. Since the 1930s, several countries have launched research ...
13 August 2024
Impact of foliar nitrogen supplementation on Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc wines
The effectiveness of an application of foliar nitrogen at veraison depends on the initial level of vine nitrogen deficiency, an Agroscope study has shown. The threshold levels of assimilable nitrogen deficiency in the ...