Transcriptional regulation of stilbene synthases in grapevine germplasm differentially susceptible to downy mildew.

Background: To limit the impact of the downy mildew disease of grapevine and reduce the need to recur to chemical treatments, an effective strategy might be recovering adaptive resistance traits in both cultivated and wild V. vinifera germplasm. Considering that stilbenes represent the most important class of phytoalexins in the Vitaceae, the constitutive expression and transcriptional activation of all the functional members of the stilbene synthase gene family were analysed in a group of nine grapevine genotypes following artificial infection with the oomycete Plasmopara viticola, the causal agent of the disease.

Functional Leaf Traits and Diurnal Dynamics of Photosynthetic Parameters Predict the Behavior of Grapevine Varieties Towards Ozone.

A comparative study on functional leaf treats and the diurnal dynamics of photosynthetic processes was conducted on 2-year-old potted plants of two grape (Vitis vinifera L.) varieties (Aleatico, ALE, and Trebbiano giallo, TRE), exposed under controlled conditions to realistic concentrations of the pollutant gas ozone (80 ppb for 5 h day(-1), 8:00-13:00 h, + 40 ppb for 5 h day(-1), 13:00-18:00 h). At constitutive levels, the morphological functional traits of TRE improved leaf resistance to gas exchange, suggesting that TRE is characterized by a potential high degree of tolerance to ozone.