Leaflets about the project
Links
The Project will take advantage from the experience gained and by valorising the results obtained in two previous EU projects:
I) WINE-OCHRA RISK: Risk assessment and integrated ochratoxin A(OTA)
management in grape and wine (QLK1-CT-2001-01761)
II) BCA_grape: New biocontrol agents for powdery mildew on grapevine (FP7-SME-2007-1).
The Project will exchange experience and methods with two ongoing EU projects focused on IPM:
III) MoDem_IVM : A web-based system for real-time Monitoring and Decision Making for Integrated Vineyard Management(FP7-SME-2010-1)
IV) PURE: Pesticide Use and risk Reduction in European farming systems with IPM (FP7-KBBE-2010-4).
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Stakeholders
In Europe, most of the countries registered growths between 5 and 15% annually in the consumption of organic wine. More and more growers are interested to the organic viticulture and consequently more and more stakeholders and end-users.
Canada has the best potential market for organic wine (consumption grew of around 20% in recent years); USA (sales of organic wine reach about 26 billion dollars a year) and Brazil also shows constant growth figures.
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Project news
The VineMan.org project was presented at the 10th International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP 2013) held in Beijing, China, in August 2013. (http://orgprints.org/23024/)
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Enhancing organic grape production through a more efficient control of the grape diseases | | The final meeting of the vineman project takes place 9th
View programme |
Results
Main outcomes at this stage?
80 different substances have been tested to identify potential resistance
activator compounds: one compound demonstrated, both in controlled environment
and in the field, the ability to reduce sporulation of Plasmopara viticola.
Different operational activities were tested in vineyards to modify the cluster
microclimate in order to make it less favorable to pathogens growth and more
favorable to berry ripening: pre-flowering basal leaves removal showed to be a
good solution.
Mechanistic models for infection of both powdery and downy mildew, developed by
the team of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, were implemented in a
web-based platform and were used to schedule treatments in the experimental
fields.
Strain-specific detection systems for Bacillus amyloliquefaciens QST713,
Aureobasidium pullulans CF 10 and CF 40 and Ampelomyces quisqualis AQ10 were
developed. Experiments on the efficacy of BCA mixtures were performed in
controlled environment and they revealed that copper has a tendency to
negatively influence the persistence of the microorganisms on vine leaves.
Moreover, tests in laboratory showed that Lecanicillium lecanii (MycotalTM) is
virulent to the second larva instar of Scaphoideus titanus.
Finally, considering all the above mentioned results two innovative and
comprehensive strategies for the organic management of the vineyard were
developed and tested in experimental fields. A first “risk-adverse strategy” is
based on the combination of:
i) fall treatments with the hyperparasite Ampelomyces spp. for the reduction of
the overwintering chasmothecia of Erysiphe necator, ii) the web-portal with
models for the prediction of downy and powdery mildews to schedule copper and
sulphur treatments at label dose during the season;
iii) use of Botector for the control of grey mold. A second “risk-seeking
strategy” is based only on: i) low-dose copper and sulphur applications
according to the models and ii) early leaf removal for the control of grey mold.
These strategies were compared with the farmer’s usual strategy: the same
disease control was achieved using less plant protection products, in particular
with the “risk-seeking strategy”.
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Background
Insufficient disease control is often the main reason for growers to abandon organic production. The progressive reduction of copper fungicides (Council Regulation (EEC) 2092/91, Annex II) further increases this problem.
Project objectives
The Project involves seven research groups in five EU Countries. The VineMan.org Project aims at designing, developing, and testing innovative cropping systems for organic vineyards in Europe. In detail, the project focuses on enhancing organic grape production and its stability through a more efficient control of the grape diseases.
The Project aims at improving disease control, which is one of the main and most difficult tasks in organic viticulture, integrating plant resistance against fungal pathogens, cropping practices, and use of BCAs depending on environmental conditions. VineMan.org is organised in 8 Work Packages (WPs), each of them led by a competent partner, and they are closely related one to each other.
Project organisation
Management of the project activities, knowledge, IPR and exploitation of the results have a specific WP (WP1). Expression of vine resistance and methods for inducing the innate immunity of plants against fungi and oomycetes pathogenic to Vitis vinifera will be evaluated in WP2. The effect of some viticulture management options on the development of the target diseases will be investigated in WP3, with particular focus on canopy and cluster morphology modifications. WP 4 is devoted to the study of the relationships between the target pathogens and the environmental conditions with emphasis to the development of weather-driven, mechanistic, dynamic models for predicting plant disease epidemics. In WP5, the fitness, impact, and efficacy against the main grape diseases, will be evaluated in four BCAs representing bacteria and fungi including yeasts already registered in the EU as microbial biopesticides. WP6 will be focused on the development of new strategies based on model simulations. Two WPs will be aimed to field trials (WP7) and to the evaluation and monitoring of the microbial communities present on grape leaves and berries (WP8).
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Main project activities
Methods for inducing the innate immunity of plants against the main pathogens and the effect of some viticulture management options on the development of the key diseases (downy and powdery mildews, bunch rots) and will be evaluated. The relationships between the target pathogens and the environmental conditions will be studied to develop weather-driven, mechanistic models for predicting plant disease epidemics.
The fitness and efficacy against the main grape diseases, will be evaluated in four biocontrol agents. New strategies based on design-assessment-adjustment cycle will be developed and tested in field trials. Finally, the microbial communities present on grape leaves and berries will be evaluated and monitored. |
Experimental vineyard where the activities foreseen in WP3 were performed in the season 2012 |  |
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Search Organic Eprints
The open archive includes a vast amount of documents on organic certification
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More search options on www.orgprints.org
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Vineman.Org
Integration of plant resistance, cropping practices, and biocontrol agents for enhancing disease management, yield efficiency, and biodiversity in organic European vineyards
9 partners, 5 countries
Coordinator
Associated Professor Vittorio Rossi, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
Partners
Director Paolo Storchi, CRA – Agricultural Research Council, Italy
Head of Department Helga Reisenzein, Institute of Plant Health, Austria
Head of Department Hanns-Heinz Kassemeyer, Staatliches Weinbauinstitut, Germany
Associate Professor Javier Tardaguila, University of La Rioja, Spain
Professor Emilio Montesinos, University of Girona, Spain
PhD Hans-Josef Schroers, Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, Slovenia
Dr. Franz G. Rosner, Education and research centre for enology and pomology, Austria
Professor Joseph Strauss, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria
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Expected results
Presentation in international and national conferences will be held to communicate with other researchers which are interested in the same research field.
Publications in peer-reviewed journals with Impact Factor will be written to show the high quality of the research performed within the project.
A final Congress will be organized to present the results and the holistic approach of the research for managing the organic vineyards.
A project web-site will be implemented which shows the project partners, aims, contents, progresses, and results. Considering that farmers are searching more and more information from Internet, the web-site will be enriched with presentations and videos showing results of practical interest for them. Project leaflets will be also prepared in English and translated in Italian, Spanish, German, and Slovenian. Articles in professional magazines and journals will be published and workshops will be organized with stakeholders and end-users. Finally, presentations will be prepared for broadcasting media in such a way to reach a big audience, including consumers, and make the research area familiar to them.
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