Grapevine Responses to Abiotic and Biotic Stresses

Dear Colleagues,

In the general context, the impact of ongoing global warming calls into question the future economic sustainability and quality of grapevine production in the environments most prone to abiotic stressors, such as drought and the persistence of high temperatures for long periods, frosts, and hail events during fruit growth and ripening stages.

Despite the great plasticity of grapevine responses to many of these events, the severity, duration, and/or concomitance of stress factors, as well as the succession of extreme events during the growing cycle, heavily impact yield and quality. In pedoclimatic contexts and varieties most sensitive to abiotic and biotic stresses, the risk of reducing cultivability is now real, and viticulture may be further compromised in the future.

In many arid and semi-arid wine-growing areas, a sharp reduction in water resources has been observed in recent years. The occurrence and severity of pathogen and pest attacks are all the more impactful, as the more sensitive to biotic adversity the genotype x environment combination is, the less resilient or adapted the cropping system to the changing environment is.

In the future, to meet these challenges, further knowledge is needed on grapevine’s ability to develop stress-tolerance strategies. In particular, genetic, phenotypic, and agronomic factors that have determined the resilience and typicality of vineyards in such distinct wine-growing areas are topics of interest. The potential use of new resistant varieties, and the development and dissemination of new decision support systems are equally important tools, and their contribution to improving management and counteracting biotic and abiotic stresses must be evaluated in different contexts, in order to meet different environmental and economic sustainability needs.

This Special Issue is devoted to studies on grapevine responses to the changing environment, biotic adversity, and tools for monitoring disease and pest management, and the study and application of new decision support systems for vineyard monitoring, management, and adaptation to the challenges of climate change.

We welcome authors who develop work concerning grapevine biotic and abiotic stresses to address these challenges and present their pertinent research in our Special Issue.

Dr. Ana Fernandes De Oliveira 
Prof. Dr. Cristina A. Costa 
Dr. Giuseppe Serra
Prof. Dr. Giovanni Nieddu 
Prof. Dr. Costantino Sirca 
Guest Editors

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• abiotic, biotic, and combined stresses
• vine adaptation to abiotic stresses
• biodiversity, viticultural resilience, and terroir
• tolerance and resistance to biotic stresses
• genetic selection and phenotyping
• stress monitoring and use of DSS
• tools, cultural techniques, and counteracting impacts
• biostimulants and fertilizers