Hierarchy of factors impacting grape berry mass: separation of direct and indirect effects on major berry metabolites
Final berry mass, a major quality factor in wine production, is determined by the integrated effect of biotic and abiotic factors that can also influence berry composition. Under field conditions, interactions between these factors complicate study of the variability of berry mass and composition. Depending on the observation scale, the hierarchy of the impact degree of these factors can vary. The present work examines the simultaneous effects of the major factors influencing berry mass and composition to create a hierarchy by impact degree. A second objective was to separate the possible direct effects of factors on berry composition from an indirect effect mediated through their impact on…
Differences in berry primary and secondary metabolisms identified by transcriptomic and metabolic profiling of two table grape color somatic variants
ABSTRACTAnthocyanins are flavonoids responsible for the color of berries in skin-pigmented grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.). Due to the widely adopted vegetative propagation of this species, somatic mutations occurring in meristematic cell layers can be fixed and passed into the rest of the plant when cloned. In this study we focused on the transcriptomic and metabolic differences between two color somatic variants. Using microscopic, metabolic and mRNA profiling analyses we compared the table grape cultivar (cv.) ‘Red Globe’ (RG, with purplish berry skin) and cv. ‘Chimenti Globe’ (CG, with a contrasting reddish berry skin color). As expected, significant differences were found in the composit…