The varietal resistance as a sustainable solution for quality wines. The French approach

Since the 19th century, vineyards in Europe and especially in France have dealt with the introduction of several grave diseases originating from the United States: powdery mildew, phylloxera, downy mildew and Black rot.

The use of grafting on rootstock resistant to phylloxera and the discovery of the first fungicide treatments helped to limit these crises. Today, chemical control remains the main resources used to limit the impact of these diseases.

Like for other crops, the possibilities of reducing agrochemicals follow a common approach, but considering the specificity of each sector. This approach defines different levels of pesticide use reduction, from intensive viticulture to organic and biodynamic viticulture and intermediate levels such as reasoned viticulture, with low levels of agrochemicals and integrated viticulture. It should be noted that the effectiveness of many synthetic fungicides has been significantly reduced by the emergence of resistant species.

Hernan Ojeda in his keynote lecture during the “International Congress on Grapevine and Wine Sciences”, describes the trajectory followed since obtaining the first hybrids strongly tolerant to mildew and powdery mildew, to the selection works on the genetic material resistant from inter-specific backcrossing Vitis vinífera x Muscadinia rotundifolia, up to the specific programs that have led to the selection of several resistant genotypes suitable for the production of very high quality wines.

Finally, he talks about the perspectives of development of resistant varieties in France with the first transfers to the wine sector of improved original varieties both at the level of disease tolerance and adaptation to climate warming.

The paper reproduced in this video-seminar was presented at the International Congress on Grapevine and Wine Sciences – ICGWS (Logroño, Spain, November 7-9, 2018) organized by ICVV.