Assessment of climate impact on grape productivity: A new application for bioclimatic indices in Italy

Italy is a world leader for viticulture and wine business with an export valued 7 billion of euros in 2021, and wine being the second most exported product within the national agri-food sector. However, these figures might be threatened by climate change and winegrowers call for more reliable local information on future impacts of climate change on viticulture. The study aims to understand the impact of climate on wine production in Italy using grape productivity data and bioclimatic indices. Using temperature and precipitation observations from the E-OBS gridded dataset, a set of bioclimatic indices recommended by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine guidelines is calculated and correlated with grape productivity data at the regional scale (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics, NUTS, level 2) over the last 39 years (1980-2019). The study investigates how both long-term change and natural variability of the bioclimatic indices impacted on grape productivity. Both single and multi-regression approaches are applied to assess the portion of grape productivity variability explained by the selected indices. When the single-regression approach is applied, the correlations between bioclimatic indices and grape productivity explain up to the 45 % of total production variability, however they are statistically significant only in few regions. Conversely, the multi-regression approach improves the proportion of variance explained and gives statistically significative results in region where the single regression is not statically significant. The multi-regressive approach shows the added value of considering the interplay of different bioclimatic indices in explaining the overall variability of productivity. The possibility of using bioclimatic indicators as a proxy for grape productivity provides a simple tool that grape growers, wine consortia and policy makers can use to adapt to future climate.

The results of grapevine breeding in the Republic of Moldova – in context of climatic and socio-economic challenges

The results achieved in Republic of Moldova in using the potential of grapevine Gene pool over the past 40 years are significant: new varieties for diverse utilisation, designed for complex biological resistance to stress factors, for reduced pressing on the environment and for excellent capabilities for ecological agriculture. Breeding programs resulted in modernization of assortment – were created more than 80 new varieties for table and wine grapes, most of them with advanced biological resistance, and 32 varieties were included in actual assortment and other are in the process of testing. An important feature of this assortment is presence of seedless varieties, well adapted to our geographical area. According to their characteristics (resistance, quality, productivity), created seedless varieties are not only a pioneering for the assortment of the Republic of Moldova, but for the entire Euro-Asian region. New seedless varieties and perspective elites manifest an increased percentage of buds started in vegetation after the wintering. High fertility, medium to large and very large grapes, accumulation of sugars and total acidity in must favourably for consumption of fresh grapes or for technological processing, suitability for long-term storage and transportability for some of them, denote their high productive and qualitative potential.