Research Thriving on the Vines (7 min. 31 sec.) Speaker 1: Julie Tarara, horticulturist, USDA ARS Prosser, Washington We're in Prosser, Washington in lovely Yakoma Valley. And this is the ARS National Grape and Wine Initiative stakeholder meeting to update our industry partners on research progress that ARS scientists have made over the past two to three years. We work in the vineyards looking at ways to help growers become more efficient in their vineyard operations. A neat thing that we have actually been working on for about the past six years now is what we are calling trellis tension monitoring and it's coupled with another concept we call automated yield estimation. Growers and wineries want to know their yield in advance and that historically has been done by taking samples by hand. Giving the processor or the winery an estimate of how much crop is coming in. As you might imagine, that doesn't really give you a dynamic view of the crop and it takes an awful lot of labor. So, what we're looking at is a way of estimating the crop and automatically following the crop growth by measuring the tension in a trellis wire. Grapes are not crops that can stand on their own. They are not like trees. They typically are trellised. What we do is we put a very simple device called a load cell on the wire and as the tension on that wire increases we know that the grapes are growing. And, we can predict from there what we think the mass or the yield of grapes are on that wire and that technique is something we were awarded a patent for in 2005. So, we are actively looking for perhaps an engineering firm that would want to work with us. Who would see the market potential of this in vineyards across the US and worldwide. Ed Civerolo, plant pathologist, USDA ARS Parlier, California Our research in Parlier is related to Pierce's disease. This is an important problem for the grape industry. With the introduction of an exotic insect vector in the 1990s the pathogen that causes this disease was spread around more and so there were losses of production, vineyards had to be pulled out. It was quite a serious economic effect. As a result there has been an increase in the amount of research within ARS and in universities, University of California specifically. We are learning more about the pathogen. We entered into a relationship with scientists in Brazil to learn about the genomics of this pathogen. In addition, the latest research that has the most immediate impact is the development of varieties that have resistance to the disease. A major contribution to that is being made by Dr. David Ramming, a grape breeder. David Ramming, geneticist, USDA ARS Parlier, California We are looking for resistance to some of the most important grape diseases and trying to make things that are easier to grow, more productive as well as better for the consumers. We are trying to develop seedless grapes with large berries and good flavor. The growers need things that are easier to produce, either more productive or require less input such as large berry sizes without the application of the natural growth hormone called gibberellic acid or cutting a piece of bark out of the trunk or vine called girdling. That costs money because it takes time and labor and also cost money for the chemicals. We are looking for disease resistance to powdery mildew and we are developing resistant varieties based on natural resistance that is found in native grapes in the United States or even grapes that are native to China. The resistant types have poor fruit quality, not very edible type of fruit, and we are crossing those with our best table and raisin grapes to recover both good fruit quality that the consumers like to eat as well as the resistance so the growers don't have to spray the pesticides and have that additional cost as well. Peter Cousins, geneticist, USDA ARS, Geneva, New York My research is in grape rootstock breeding, genetics and evaluation. And our goal is to develop new, improved rootstocks which have resistance to nematodes. Nematodes live in the soil. They feed on grape roots and damage the vines. And by developing resistant rootstocks we provide an alternative in pest control, specifically an alternative to methyl bromide. So that growers will be able to use resistant rootstocks instead of PBA-ing the soil. Fumiganting the soil is expensive and it's damaging to the environment so by developing new rootstocks with improved resistance to nematodes we provide an alternative to methyl bromide and other fumigants, a sustainable way for pest management. Krista Shellie, plant physiologist, USDA ARS, Parma, Idaho The main focus in my research is working with wine grapes and the focus is to look at horticultural practices that impact end product quality. We just completed a three year field trial looking at different levels of irrigation that we applied to Merlot grapes. We were able to produce high quality product using 30% less water and that had to do with not only the total amount of water that we applied but also the timing of the irrigations. We control the amount of water we applied at certain stages of berry development. So, the managing of the water is not just a simple apply this much, turn it on, and your going to have this quality but you really have to be looking at the vine physiology. Jim Joseph, physiologist, USDA ARS, Boston, Massachusetts The wave of all of these fruits, grapes and berries is health. What will increase the market, what will increase the sales which is what they are after in the final analysis, is the promotion of health of these things. We did some work with Concord grape juice and they use some of our stuff about antioxidants the effects on brain and aging in some of their ads and I was just talking to one of the people from the co-op and he said that their sales went up. But we need more funding along those lines. We need more focus on it by the industry to say we really want to move in this direction. Look the US population is getting older and as they get older they get all these things you hear about Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, there are papers out now showing drops as much as 40% in the incident of diseases like Alzheimer disease--which is devastating--in people who drink juice like, grape juice. So this is why it's really important. Tom Davenport, Chair, Board of Directors, National Grape and Wine Initiative The grape and wine industry which includes table grapes, juice and raisins as well as wine grapes is about a $160 billion industry. So our industry in total relies heavily on ARS researchers to help us become more competitive in the international market place. Julie Tarara, horticulturist, USDA ARS Prosser, Washington I think what ARS scientists can offer the industry is a long term approach. We conduct experiments over several years so industry members can really have confidence in those results. We're trying to help them stay competitive in the global market place and staying in the high quality tier is what is going to help them do that.