Dissecting the effect of soil on plant phenology and berry transcriptional plasticity in two Italian grapevine varieties (Vitis vinifera L.)

Abstract

Grapevine embodies a fascinating species as regards phenotypic plasticity and genotype-per-environment interactions. The terroir, namely the set of agri-environmental factors to which a variety is subjected, can influence the phenotype at the physiological, molecular, and biochemical level, representing an important phenomenon connected to the typicality of productions. We investigated the determinants of plasticity by conducting a field-experiment where all terroir variables, except soil, were kept as constant as possible. We isolated the effect of soils collected from different areas, on phenology, physiology, and transcriptional responses of skin and flesh of a red and a white variety of great economic value: Corvina and Glera. Molecular results, together with physio-phenological parameters, suggest a specific effect of soil on grapevine plastic response, highlighting a higher transcriptional plasticity of Glera in respect to Corvina and a marked response of skin compared to flesh. Using a novel statistical approach, we identified clusters of plastic genes subjected to the specific influence of soil. These findings could represent an issue of applicative value, posing the basis for targeted agricultural practices to enhance the desired characteristics for any soil/cultivar combination, to improve vineyards management for a better resource usage and to valorize vineyards uniqueness maximizing the terroir-effect.

Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank Dr Diego Tomasi (CREA-VE, Conegliano, Italy) for providing the contacts for collecting soils, Dr. Federica Gaiotti (CREA-VE, Conegliano, Italy), Dr Sara Sgubin, Dr Martina Pacifico, Dr Pierfrancesco Boldrini and Dr Enrico Carraro for their help in physiological measurements. The study was carried out within the Agritech National Research Center and received funding from the European Union Next-Generation EU (PIANO NAZIONALE DI RIPRESA E RESILIENZA (PNRR) – MISSIONE 4 COMPONENTE 2, INVESTIMENTO 1.4-D.D. 1032 17/06/2022, CN00000022). In particular, our study represents a research paper within the Task 4.1.1. (Spoke 4) titled: “Next-generation genotyping and -omics technologies for the molecular prediction of multiple resilient traits in crop plants”. This study was also supported by the Starting Grants 2015 CARIPARO project titled “Grapevine plasticity and terroir: a multidisciplinary approach for dissecting the single effect of soil and climate on berry and wine quality”.

Author contribution

A.V. and M.L conceived the study. C.P. and A.V performed phenological and physiological measurements and their statistical analysis. S.M., Z.P. S.Z. performed the VIM statistical analysis and helped in the interpretation of results. M.P., P.S. and A.C performed the RNAseq analyses and bioinformatic preprocessing of reads. A.V., C.P., F.P. and S.Z. analyzed the data. The manuscript was written by A.V., C.P., F.P., S.F., G.B. and M.L. and approved by all other authors.

Data Availability

All raw reads were deposited in the NCBI SRA database with accession numbers PRJEB46163.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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