Tackling Grapevine Water Relations in a Global Warming Scenario

Dear Colleagues,

Models of climate change consistently suggest a reduction of precipitation in temperate and sub-tropical land areas—where most of the wine grape viticulture is located—and, conversely, an increase in precipitation in more northerly latitudes and the equator. In addition, a rising temperature will lead to an increased evaporative demand by the atmosphere, whereas increased soil erosion rates and faster organic matter degradation will likely reduce the soil’s water holding capacity. All in all, these interacting factors will endanger the competitiveness and even survival of viticulture in several areas around the world, unless new techniques are designed and implemented in order to improve vineyard resilience to drought, or, more in general, to multiple summer stresses. Please share your success stories from research in dry farm and irrigated viticulture regions around the world in this Special Issue. Submissions on, but not limited to, the following topics are invited: (1) the innovative and novel application of conventional approaches for grapevine irrigation management; (2) agronomic practices aimed at yield and quality maintenance under semi-dry environments with limited or no availability of green water; (3) advanced techniques, such as remote and proximal sensing, for farm-scale and intra-vineyard irrigation scheduling; (4) optimum regulated deficit irrigation strategies; (5) decision support tools and modeling for predicting “if” an irrigation event is truly needed; (6) techniques targeted at increasing soil water storage capacity; (7) genetic tolerance to drought in grapevines (what is new and available?); (8) Internet of Things and vineyard irrigation (what is low cost, efficient, and user-friendly monitoring truly possible?); and (9) solutions to compromise between cover crop adoption and reduced competition for water in vineyards.

Prof. Stefano Poni
Guest Editor

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