Search

Leaf water potential (LWP) is widely used to assess plant water status and it is commonly used by growers to make immediate crop and water management decisions. However, LWP measurement via direct method presents challenges as it is labour, time intensive and represents leaf-level conditions for sampling of small vineyard block. An alternative approach is using pigment concentration as a proxy for the canopy’s water status. Spectral data methods have been applied to monitor and evaluate crops’ biophysical variables. In this study, a model to predict LWP using via UAS equipped with a VIS-NIR multispectral camera and trained machine learning algorithm, is developed and tested. The model was tested on three dates in 2020 in a commercial vineyard in the Tufo Wine Region. Three modelling approaches (partial least square regression PLSR, support vector machine SVM, artificial neural network ANN) and two input datasets (combining spectral data and spectral vegetation indices) were used to estimate LWP. All approaches predicted LWP-based on spectral data classified from high to low; the results were consistent in direct proportion to the laboratory results and performed the best results. This research shows the potential for estimating LWP at a vineyard scale based on UAS information, represents a good and relatively cheap solution to assess plant status spatial distribution and therefore it could provide a direct way to achieve precise agricultural vineyard.

Climate change, causing increasing warming and drought in Mediterranean area, is year by year determining grapevine yield and berry quality reductions, with particular extent in some of the autochthonous grape varieties, as Greco grapevine, cultivated in the Campania Region (southern Italy) and used alone or blend in many quality label wines. Since pedo-climatic conditions affect vineyard productivity and grape quality, the adoption of adequate cultivation techniques, such as soil and canopy management, can support vineyard in counteracting climate change effects, improving grape yield and berry quality, thus allowing to obtain highly valuable wines. The evaluation of the Greco grapes quality by the analysis of primary metabolites of the grape and the secondary ones, with an oenological impact responsible for the organoleptic quality and the longevity of the white wines, is pivotal for understanding whether the adopted cultivation practices might mitigate the negative effects deriving from long-lasting exposure of grapes to drought and/or rainy periods which may determine the onset of organoleptic defects in the wines.In the framework of the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, Campania Region funded the Grease project to contribute to the main topic of improving grapevine productivity, resource use efficiency and resilience for the sustainable management of vineyards.Within the general objective of the Grease project, the aim of this study was to evaluate how different combinations of main cultivation practices, as vine canopy and soil management, can allow to exert a balanced vegetative and reproductive growth that enhances grape and wine quality, improving farm profitability.The three-year trial was carried out in a Greco experimental vineyard of Feudi di San Gregorio winery in southern Italy (Avellino, Campania region), aiming to analyze the effects of three soil management practices (cover crops, natural coverage, and soil tillage) and two vine training systems (double guyot and double guyot flipped) on yield, berry and must quality in three vintages. The meteorological data and soil water content were collected through weather stations and time-domain reflectometry (TDR) technique.At harvest yield components were determined and berry quality was evaluated by measuring soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, malic acid, phenolics, assimilable nitrogen etc. Apart usual chemical analytical methodologies, spectrophotometric and chromatographic techniques were used to determine phenolic composition of grapes and wines. Microvinifications were also performed to evaluate the variability of oenological traits under different combination of soil and canopy management.A great effect of year on primary and secondary metabolites were detected. Soluble solids and total phenolic compounds increased passing from 2020, 2021 and 2023 while a clear trend for titratable acidity and pH was not observed due to a wide variation in malic acid content. Among soil management practices natural coverage and cover crops resulted in grapes with lower content of soluble solids while the soil tillage determined a lower content of phenolic compounds and hydroxycinnamic acids in grapes. In two years, soil tillage determined higher content of assimilable nitrogen in grapes probably because a lower competition for nitrogen occurred. Trends observed in grapes were confirmed in wines.

Climate change in the internal areas of the Mediterranean region is causing a decrease in the frequency of rains and an increase in temperatures, leading to dryer and warmer seasons. These conditions, which will become more and more intense in the coming decades, are already affecting viticulture (e.g. photoinhibition, leaf and berry sunburn) influencing the growth and physiology of vines together with the yield and quality of grapes. The sustainability of vine cultivation in these areas is increasingly at risk, thus, the definition of sustainable cultivation techniques is pivotal to stabilize production and maintain high quality standards of the grapes.The aim of this work is to evaluate the effects of the application of basalt dust on the leaf surface of Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Falanghina’ grapevine, grown under two different water availability levels over two years characterized by different climatic conditions. The experiment was conducted between 2021 and 2022 in a commercial vineyard of La Guardiense farm at Guardia Sanframondi (Benevento, southern Italy), in the Sannio wine district. The treatment blocks set, localized after geo-physical analysis of the soil, were the following: DI (distribution of basalt dusts and irrigated; Dust-Irrigated), DR (distribution of basalt dusts and rainfed; Dust-Rainfed), NDI (without basalt dusts and irrigated; No Dust-Irrigated), and NDR (without basalt dusts and rainfed; No Dust-Rainfed). The basalt dusts were distributed during the productive-vegetative cycle of the vine (from April to September) and the irrigation was managed according to weather conditions and soil water availability. During the two years of trials, the vegetative growth was monitored through biometric measures, the eco-physiological characteristics through leaf gas-exchanges, chlorophyll “a” fluorescence emission and leaf water potential, during the four main phenological phases: flowering, fruit set, veraison and maturation. Eco-physiological traits were also linked to leaf functional anatomical traits (e. g. lamina thickness, localization of phenolics, stomatal size and frequency) to detect mechanisms for acclimation. After the measurement of fertility, the grapes from each plot were harvested and micro-vinified. The musts and wines were chemically characterized to understand the oenological potential of each one. The analysis of the data from the two seasons 2021 and 2022 allowed us to unravel the effect of inter-annual climatic variability on the potential for photoprotection of the dust distribution. Gained information is useful to evaluate whether the use of basalt dust can be considered a tool for mitigating water stress and rationalizing irrigation protocols.

In the Mediterranean region, climate models forecast an increase in temperature and irregularities in the precipitation patterns which are a challenge for viticulture. The number, type, intensity and duration of stressors induce specific morpho-physiological responses which are cultivar-specific and are reflected on grape yield and quality. A major challenge for vines in southern Mediterranean area is to invest resources to construct leaves capable of efficiently converting carbon into biomass, while controlling evapotranspiration losses, as well as maintaining a balance between vegetative growth and reproduction. Plants have to harmonize structure and function to achieve efficient physiological processes and use of resources. Although it is not clear whether plant anatomical structure is the bottleneck for efficient functioning or vice versa, it is recognized that tissue growth and photosynthesis cannot be decoupled. Therefore, the knowledge of the plasticity in the coordination between morpho-anatomical and eco-physiological traits in vines is needed to forecast how vineyards would respond to climate changes. Moreover, the impact of climate change depends on pedo-climatic spatial variability, and it can be either buffered or intensified by vineyard management.Within this framework, the aim of this study was to evaluate the combined effect of two types of canopy management (double guyot and double guyot flipped) and three treatments of soil management (cover crops, natural coverage, and soil tillage) on the coordination of morpho-anatomical and eco-physiological traits in the grapevine cultivar 'Greco' (Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera), autochthonous and widely cultivated in the Campania Region (southern Italy). The field trials were conducted at the Feudi di San Gregorio winery premises in southern Italy, within the GREASE project, funded by the Campania Region through the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, with the general goal of improving grapevine productivity and resilience for the sustainable management of vineyards.The status of vines was monitored over three years by applying a multidisciplinary approach allowing the analysis of vines behavior at the single plant- and whole-vineyard levels. Indeed, the growth and the eco-physiological traits of vines were monitored by measuring biometrical parameters, leaf gas-exchanges, chlorophyll a fluorescence emission, and leaf water potentials. Leaves were also sampled to quantify carbon stable isotopes as well as functional anatomical parameters (e.g. parenchyma, stomata and vein traits) linked to the efficiency of gas-exchanges and water flow. Proximal sensing techniques were applied to monitor the whole vineyard performances. The meteorological data and soil water content were collected through weather stations and time-domain reflectometry (TDR) technique.The overall analysis of results showed that the effect of different canopy and soil management is strongly mediated by inter-and intra-annual variability of climatic factors. From a methodological point of view, the multidisciplinary approach proved to be fundamental to go in-depth in the cause-effect relations and mechanisms for vines acclimation. Only a deep understanding of such acclimation mechanisms can furnish the keys to optimize the utilization of the information collected through the novel proximal technologies, for the design of vineyard management strategies to improve yield and quality still assuring environmental sustainability.

The pedo-climatic conditions can determine the grape varieties that can be cultivated as well as have deep influence on wine quality. Climate change has already caused significant warming and drought in most grape-growing areas of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean area where viticulture is suffering yield and grape quality reductions due to the increased frequency and duration of drought periods. Ongoing climate change is aggravating some critical issues in the production of the autochthonous grape variety 'Greco' (Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera), widely cultivated in the Campania Region (southern Italy) and used alone or blend in many quality label wines. Nowadays, there is a high risk for the economic sustainability of Greco cultivation due to the following main issues: reduced vine productivity, low selling price of grapes, and territory fragmentation. Such criticisms induce the abandonment of small/medium-sized farms due to either crop conversion or consolidation into larger farms.Although pedo-climatic conditions can affect vineyard productivity and grape quality primarily, the application of adequate cultivation techniques, such as soil and canopy management, can help alleviating the increasing constrains to vineyard sustainability. In the framework of the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, Campania Region funded the GREASE project to contribute to the main topic of improving grapevine productivity, resource use efficiency, and resilience for the sustainable management of vineyards.The general objective of Grease project is to improve the potential production of Greco concerns the management of major cultivation practices in viticulture by the realization of a cultivar-specific model for vine canopy and soil management. Optimization of such cultivation factors is important in order to achieve a good vegetative and reproductive balance that enhances grape and wine quality, improves farm profitability and finally provides environmental sustainability. The project is carried out in a Greco experimental vineyard of Feudi di San Gregorio winery in southern Italy (Avellino, Campania region). One of the main activities is to analyse the effect of soil management and vine training systems on the continuum soil-plant-atmosphere system. The growth and the eco-physiological traits of vines were monitored in the main phenological phases by measuring morphological parameters, fertility, leaf gas-exchanges, chlorophyll a fluorescence emission, leaf water potentials, and leaf anatomical characteristics. The meteorological data and soil water content were collected through weather stations and time-domain reflectometry (TDR) technique. Proximal sensing techniques were applied to monitor the whole vineyard performances. The production of each experimental plot was evaluated in terms of chemical characterization of musts and wines in order to assess the treatments-induced changes in oenological traits.The preliminary results of two-years experimental trials are presented to highlighting how the canopy and soil management can influence the vine eco-physiological behavior and productive performance.An increased understanding of how cultivation factors influence the efficient use of available resources in the Greco vineyard will allow know-how transfer to other grapevine productive systems.

Climate-change-driven increasing temperature and frequency of prolonged drought periods are affecting vine growth and physiological behaviour in the Mediterranean region, with consequences on berry yield and quality. In this scenario, there is increasing need to improve the knowledge on how plants react to environmental fluctuations and forecast possible responses to climate changes. Moreover, the plasticity of morpho-functional aspects, on which vine acclimation relies, can vary according to the spatial variability of some environmental factors such as soil properties and microclimate in the vineyard.The objective of this study was to analyse vine growth and production performance in four vineyards of Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Falanghina’ located in southern Italy (La Guardiense farm, Campania region) subjected to different pedo-climatic conditions but characterized by vines of similar age, training system (double Guyot), spacing (≈ 4545 vines/ha). Climatic parameters were continuously monitored in each of the vineyard, through meteorological stations and FDR probes installed at three soil depths. The vineyard performance was monitored over three years characterized by different climatic conditions. Vine growth and production was monitored during the three years by quantifying morphological and eco-physiological parameters, measured in the main phenological phases, including: plant architecture, fertility, leaf anatomical traits, and grapevine photosynthetic performance through measurements in vivo of leaf gas exchanges and fluorescence chlorophyll emission. The plant nutritional status was characterized by analyzing minerals (anions, cations) and organic acids in leaves and berries. The analysis of stable isotopes in leaves, wood and must was performed to estimate the whole plant water use efficiency. Berry quality was evaluated by measuring soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, malic acid, phenolics, anthocyanins, assimilable nitrogen etc. Microvinifications were also performed to evaluate the variability of oenological traits as well as geomorphology and pedological analyses to assess soil properties. Finally, a retrospective analysis through the analysis of anatomical and isotopic traits in tree-ring series was also carried out to achieve information on the past plant eco-physiological behaviour.The overall analysis of data highlighted that the four vineyards can be grouped into two clusters on the basis of growth and production performance as well as of must quality, due to the spatial variability of soil properties leading to different real water availability for the plants, the different microclimates either exacerbated or mitigated by the different cultivation practices and soil management. The improvement of knowledge about the plasticity of morphofunctional traits in different pedo-climatic contexts can support forecasting future response to climatic stress conditions thus helping the management of vineyards.

Vineyard productivity and grape quality are strictly linked with the pedoclimatic characteristics (e.g. soil and climate) as well as with cultivation techniques (e.g. canopy and soil management, plant nutrition). Each grapevine cultivar is characterized by specific morpho-physiological traits which determine the ability to cope with stressors. The knowledge of the plasticity of such traits is needed to forecast how vineyards would respond to climate changes. Indeed, viticulture in some areas of the Mediterranean basin, is facing sustainability problems due increase in severe and prolonged drought periods, responsible for reduction in yield and grape quality. Although to achieve quality and/or geographical indication labels, the Italian legislation imposes rainfed cultivation for grapevine, the need for irrigation introduction and management in the vineyard is becoming more and more evident. For designing the best strategies for water use in the vineyard, it is fundamental to gain knowledge on hydraulics of the specific cultivar in its pedoclimatic context. The application of dendro-sciences techniques, based on the fine study of anatomical and isotopic traits of tree-rings in the vine main stem and of their relations with environmental parameters, can help reconstructing the past plant’s eco-physiological behaviour. Here we report the results of one of the activities carried out within the GREASE project, funded by the Campania Region through the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, in the framework of improving grapevine productivity, resource use efficiency and resilience for the sustainable management of vineyards.The study was conducted in a vineyard of Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Greco’ at the premises of Feudi di San Gregorio farm, in southern Italy (Avellino). In this study, we aimed to analyse the relations between anatomical and isotopic wood traits with climate parameters in tree-ring series from vines of two age classes which were subjected to a change in pruning technique in the past years. Wood cores and stem disks were sampled and tree-rings were dated according to dendro-chronological techniques. Then semi-thin sections of the tree-ring series were cut and analysed through light and fluorescence microscopy. Digital image analysis allowed the quantification of wood anatomical traits linked with hydraulic conductivity and vulnerability to embolism. The tree-ring series were then dissected to prepare samples for the determination of d13C and evaluate intrinsic water use efficiency. The overall wood anatomical and stable isotope parameters were analysed together with climatic data through multivariate statistical analysis.The application of dendro-sciences technique proved to be useful to reconstruct how vines have used the water resources before and after the changing in the pruning technique. Understanding how the vine has reacted to past environmental variability and changes in cultivation factors can help forecasting how it will behave under the different climate change scenarios.

Currently, the main goal of agriculture is to promote the resilience of agricultural systems in a sustainable way through the improvement of use efficiency of farm resources, increasing crop yield and quality, under climate change conditions. This last is expected to drastically modify plant growth, with possible negative effects especially in arid and semi-arid regions of Europe on the viticultural sector. In this context, the monitoring of spatial behavior of grapevine during the growing season represents an opportunity to improve the plant management, winegrowers’ incomes, and to preserve the environmental health, but it has additional costs for the farmer. Nowadays UAS equipped with a VIS-NIR multispectral camera (blue, green, red, red-edge, and NIR) represents a good and relatively cheap solution to assess plant status spatial information (by means of a limited set of spectral vegetation indices), representing important support in precision agriculture management during the growing season. While differences between UAS-based multispectral imagery and point-based spectroscopy are well discussed in the literature, their impact on plant status estimation by vegetation indices is not completely investigated in depth. The aim of this study was to assess the performance level of UAS-based multispectral (5 bands across 450-800nm spectral region with a spatial resolution of 5cm) imagery, reconstructed high-resolution satellite (Sentinel-2A) multispectral imagery (13 bands across 400-2500 nm with a spatial resolution of Keywords: precision agriculture, vineyard monitoring, spectral measurements, CNN applied to viticulture, UAS.

In a vineyard, plant water status variability is strongly dependent on soil spatial variability, whose physical characteristics drive the processes involved in the soil water balance. The more the soil and its characteristics vary in space (horizontally and vertically), the less homogeneous the productive and qualitative response within the vineyard will be. In this context, the proximal sensing of apparent soil Electrical Conductivity (ECa) and its monitoring during the growing season can help understanding the nature of spatial variability of vineyard, supporting both viticultural microzoning (identifying Homogeneous and functional Homogeneous Zones, HZs and fHZs) and field experiments. In this contribution, the importance of use of ECa spatial monitoring during the grapevine growing season will be showed, highlighting its importance in the evaluation of the vineyard response and identification of FHZs.In this direction, a predictive model of soil ECa is proposed. It consists of the spatial prediction of ECa starting from punctual measurements obtained by a network of TDR probes able to measure ECA. In order to realise this model, a machine learning method based on Random Forests was used. It was trained to derive the spatial relationships between the apparent value of ECa measured with geophysical instrument and the ECa measured with the ACCLIMA TDR probes. In this way, a spatial prediction of the ECa values of the surveyed area is possible.The study was realized in a vineyard of southern Italy on Greco (white) grapevine, where detailed and precise records on soil and atmosphere systems, in-vivo plant monitoring of eco-physiological parameters have been conducted in 2020 and 2021, and spatial variability of plant status in vineyard monitored by means of UAV multispectral images. Apparent soil ECa was measured five timesduring the growing season 2021 by using the PROFILER EMP 400 electromagnetometer both in vertical and horizontal dipole mode. This instrument allows to simultaneously work with three frequencies (5000, 10000 and 15000 Hz) and explore different depth volumes of sub-soil. The predictive model results were processed in MATLAB and Python software and validated on plant responses obtained from vegetational indexes calculated from UAV multispectral images. The obtained results have shown how the ECa can be estimated by the predictive model carrying out important information to support vineyard monitoring.

Climate change is intensifying the need to improve the use efficiency of farm resources and to increase crop yield and quality, especially in high profitability crops as grapevine. The achievement of these challenges requires the realization of a continuous crop monitoring in the field to identify and forecast possible anomalies in plant growth and health status due to short- and long-term environmental constrictions (e.g. climate change). Several indicators are currently used to evaluate plant growth, based on in situ data collection or remote sensing. In this study, we propose a multiscale approach to assess and interpret plant growth indicators in vineyard systems. We not only monitor plant growth and eco-physiology in-vivo during cultivation, but also reconstruct past eco-physiological behavior by transferring the approach of dendro-sciences, typical of the forest science domain, to viticulture. More specifically, we extract anatomical and stable isotope traits (linked with hydraulic and resource efficiency parameters) from tree-ring series to evaluate plant plasticity to past fluctuations in environmental conditions and to changes in the vineyard management. We also check whether the reconstructed eco-physiological behavior corresponds with the indexes obtained from the retrospective analysis of space-borne and UAVs data.

Projected changes in drought occurrence in the Mediterranean region are raising concerns about the adaptive capability of rainfed crops, such as grapevine, to in- creasing aridity. Cultivation management, especially the techniques in uencing the hydraulic pathway, can play a role in plant adaptation to drought for the con- sequent changes in wood anatomical functional traits. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of grafting on wood anatomy in tree-ring series of Vitis vini- fera L. ‘Piedirosso’ grapevine cultivated in a volcanic area in Southern Italy. Tree- ring anatomy was analysed in vines grown on their own roots or grafted onto 420A rootstock. results showed that grafted vines had a higher occurrence of wood traits linked with safety of water transport if compared with non-grafted vines. Grafting induced the formation of tree rings with higher incidence of latewood also characterised by narrower and more frequent vessels if compared with non-grafted vines. This study suggested a different regulation of water ow in the grafted and non-grafted vines. Such ndings support the analysis of wood anatomy as a tool to drive decisions linked with plant cultivation management. In this speci c case, our results encourage to further explore the change from a traditional cultivation with own-rooted grapevines towards grafted models inducing better xylem adaptation to increasing drought. Projected changes in drought occurrence in the Mediterranean region are raising concerns about the adaptive capability of rainfed crops, such as grapevine, to in-creasing aridity. Cultivation management, especially the techniques influencing the hydraulic pathway, can play a role in plant adaptation to drought for the con-sequent changes in wood anatomical functional traits. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of grafting on wood anatomy in tree-ring series of Vitis vinifera L. Piedirosso' grapevine cultivated in a volcanic area in Southern Italy. Tree-ring anatomy was analysed in vines grown on their own roots or grafted onto 420A rootstock. Results showed that grafted vines had a higher occurrence of wood traits linked with safety of water transport if compared with non-grafted vines. Grafting induced the formation of tree rings with higher incidence of latewood also characterised by narrower and more frequent vessels if compared with non-grafted vines. This study suggested a different regulation of water flow in the grafted and non-grafted vines. Such findings support the analysis of wood anatomy as a tool to drive decisions linked with plant cultivation management. In this specific case, our results encourage to further explore the change from a traditional cultivation with own-rooted grapevines towards grafted models inducing better xylem adaptation to increasing drought.

The increasing irregularity in precipitation patterns and frequency of extreme drought events in the Mediterranean area is challenging the sustainability of grapevine production, especially in some areas of southern Italy. Here, being the grapevine mostly rainfed-cultivated, there is a strong demand for cultivation techniques aiming to improve water use efficiency and water stress tolerance.Pruning techniques and training system can have an effect on the hydraulic architecture of vines, thus on their hydraulic behavior that is strictly coordinated with photosynthetic efficiency and ultimately contribute to determine yield and grape quality.In this study, we aimed to evaluate whether and to what extent a change in pruning technique can influence the efficiency and safety of water flow in vines. In order to pursue this objective, we combined the dendro-sciences approach, analysing tree-ring width and anatomical features of vines subjected to an abrupt change in the pruning technique. The study was conducted within the GREASE project, funded by the Campania Region through the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, within the framework of the optimization of agricultural practices for improving grapevine resources-use efficiency for the sustainable management of vineyards.The study was conducted in a vineyard of Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Greco’ (Feudi di San Gregorio farm) located in southern Italy (Avellino) at a site where the pruning technique was changed in 2004 following the method by Simonit & Sirch (Simonit 2014 Manuale di potatura della vite Ed IA; Sun et al 2008 Am J Bot 95:1498-1505). This method applies pruning cuts oriented in a way to drive vine natural tendency in the branching, to reduce injuries stress, in order to modulate the hydraulic pathway to reduce resistances to flow. Wood cores were extracted by the vines trunk, tree-rings were dated and widths were measured according to dendro-chronological techniques using WinDENDRO software. Then the cores were subjected to thin sectioning to obtain tree-ring series that were analysed through microscopy and subjected to digital image analysis. Wood anatomical traits, linked with hydraulic conductivity and vulnerability, were quantified in each year. The tree-ring series were then annually separated and d13C was measured in each year, in order to obtain information on intrinsic water use efficiency. The overall wood anatomical and stable isotope parameters were integrated to reconstruct and interpret past eco-physiological vine behaviour in response to the change in pruning technique also taking into account the inter-annual environmental variability.The analysis of wood anatomical functional traits linked with carbon stable isotopes of grapevine tree-ring series confirmed that vineyard management technique can severely affect the vine water use, thus affecting plant growth, productivity and ultimately plant ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions.All these interactions and their effects on water use should be taken into account when designing management practices in vineyards for sustainable production.

Climate change is one of the main challenges for future agriculture since it can severely affect plant growth and development. The Mediterranean area is one of the most vulnerable regions where climatic models have forecasted a significant increase in frequency and severity of drought events. Ongoing climate change is aggravating some critical issues in the production of the autochthonous grape variety Greco, widely cultivated in the Campania Region (southern Italy) and used alone or blend in many quality label wines.Nowadays, there is a high risk for the economic sustainability of Greco cultivation due to the following main issues: reduced vine productivity, low selling price of grapes, and territory fragmentation. Such criticisms induce the abandonment of small/medium-sized farms due to either crop conversion or consolidation into larger farms.The Greco variety may represent a study model to introduce innovative and integrated management of cultivation techniques, such as pruning and soil management, with the aim to resolve similar problems affecting other autochthonous regional cultivars. They include issues, such as low fertility, that cause an unbalanced ratio among sugars, acids, and affect grape metabolites important for the oxidative stability and sensory quality of wine.The GREASE project, funded by Campania Region within the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, falls within the framework of sustainable management of vineyards (from economic, environmental and social viewpoints) with an insight to climate change. The general objective to improve the potential production of Greco concerns the management of major cultivation practices in viticulture by the realization of a cultivar-specific model for vine canopy and soil management. Optimization of parameters is important in order to achieve a good vegetative and reproductive balance that enhances grape and wine quality, improves farm profitability and environmental sustainability. This project is conducted in a vineyard of Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Greco’ located in southern Italy (Feudi di San Gregorio farm).The projects has 3 main inter-disciplinary actions: A1) to determine the effect of diverse vine pruning systems on plant resource use, through the reconstruction of vine eco-physiological history (dendro-anatomical and -isotopic analyses); A2-A3) to analyse the effect of soil management and of vine training systems on the continuum soil-plant-atmosphere system. Specific activities include: pedoclimatic, vegetative and reproductive, physiological and hydraulic characterization; microvinification and characterization of grapes and wine produced in the different trials; evaluation of resources use efficiency, pests, footprint family markers; model development.The impact of the project on other wineries of the Campania Region will be significant due to an increased understanding of how cultivation systems influence the efficient use of available resources in the Greco vineyard. Such knowledge would be useful to design simple modifications to the presently used agronomical practices, to achieve production and economic gains without long-term structural investments. This know-how will also favour other downstream technologies and biotechnologies of viticulture and enology production, as well as the associated companies (e.g., producers of fertilizers, seeds for green manure) to realize products and services better adapted to the development of cultivar-specific viticultural and enological production systems.

In the Mediterranean region, climate-change-driven increasing temperature and frequency of prolonged drought periods are affecting physiological behaviour and vine growth, with consequences on berry yield and quality. Assessing how plants have reacted to past environmental fluctuations can help understanding current plant behaviour and forecast possible responses to climate changes. The improvement of knowledge about the plasticity of morpho-functional traits in vines as response to climatic stress conditions can help the management of vineyards.In this study, we applied a wood-sciences approach to reconstruct past vine hydraulic behaviour in four vineyards of Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Falanghina’ located in southern Italy (La Guardiense farm, Benevento, Campania region), cultivated in different pedo-climatic conditions onto the same rootstock. Wood cores were extracted by the vine trunk and prepared for microscopy and stable isotope analyses to quantify functional wood anatomical traits and δ13C to assess plant water use efficiency.Vineyard performances were also monitored in vivo at the main phenological phases (flowering, fruit set, veraison, ripening), through the analysis of morphological, eco-physiological and production parameters. Stable isotopes were also traced in leaves and must. Soil profiles were characterised at the four sites that were also monitored for main climatic factors.All parameters linked with vine hydraulics, resource use and growth efficiency showed a site-specific precise coordination linked with different water and resource availability as influenced by pedo-climatic conditions. The different vines hydraulic behaviour at the four sites, derived from the analysis of the tree-ring series and confirmed by in vivo plant monitoring, contributed to different vines productivity and quality of musts. The isotopic signal of wood and must showed a similar trend, suggesting that they both record the same ecophysiological information. These innovative results suggest the possibility to use must as a good matrix to perform carbon isotope analysis and derive information on plant water use in response to pedo-climatic factors.The overall information gained through the proposed methodological approach seem to be promising to better understand plant-environment relations in the continuum soil/plant/atmosphere, useful for the management of vineyard to achieve a more sustainable wine production.

Currently, the main goal of agriculture is to promote the resilience of agricultural systems in a sustainable way through the improvement of use efficiency of farm resources, increasing crop yield and quality, under climate change conditions. Climate change is one of the major challenges for high incomes crops, as the vineyards for high-quality wines, since it is expected to drastically modify plant growth, with possible negative effects especially in arid and semi-arid regions of Europe. In this context, the reduction of negative environmental impacts of intensive agriculture (e.g. soil degradation), can be realized by means of high spatial and temporal resolution of field crop monitoring, aiming to manage the local spatial variability.The monitoring of spatial behaviour of plants during the growing season represents an opportunity to improve the plant management, the farmer incomes and to preserve the environmental health, but it represents an additional cost for the farmer.The UAS-based imagery might provide detailed and accurate information across visible and near infrared spectral regions to support monitoring (crucial for precision agriculture) with limitation in bands and then on spectral vegetation indices (Vis) provided. VIs are a well-known and widely used method for crop state estimation. The ability to monitor crop state by such indices is an important tool for agricultural management. While differences in imagery and point-based spectroscopy are obvious, their impact on crop state estimation by VIs is not well-studied. The aim of this study was to assess the performance level of the selected VIs calculated from reconstructed high-resolution satellite (Sentinel-2A) multispectral imagery (13 bands across 400-2500nm with spatial resolution of The test site is a portion of vineyard placed in southern Italy cultivated on Greco cultivar, in which the soil-plant and atmosphere system has been monitored during the 2020 vintage also through ecophysiological analyses. The data analysis will follow the methodology presented in a recently published paper (Polinova et al., 2018).The study will connect the method and scale of spectral data collection with in vivo plant monitoring and prove that it has a significant impact on the vegetation state estimation results. It should be noted that each spectral data source has its advantages and drawbacks. The plant parameter of interest should determine not only the VIs type suitable for analysis but also the method of data collection.The contribution has been realized within the CNR BIO-ECO project.

In the Mediterranean region, climate change is intensifying the need to improve the resource use efficiency of crops (e.g. water use efficiency) and to increase yield, quality and stability of productions, especially in high profitability and vulnerable crops as grapevine. In a climate change scenario, with increasing temperature and frequency of extreme events, such as prolonged periods of drought, the improvement of knowledge about the plasticity of morpho-functional traits in vines, becomes pivotal. Only a deep knowledge of vine responses to environmental constraints can help achieving the correct management of cultivation factors towards sustainability.The objective of this study is to apply a multidisciplinary approach for monitoring the resource use efficiency and resource allocation during vine development up to wine production. This general objective will be pursued by analysing the complex relationships between parameters in the continuum environment/plant/wine with specific emphasis on the influence of water availability on the vine, grapes, must and finally wine, in order to relate climate, plant water status and oenological characteristics.The study was conducted in a vineyard of Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Falanghina’ located in southern Italy (La Guardiense farm, Guardia Sanframondi, Benevento, Campania region).The vineyard performance was monitored on the basis of several morphological and eco-physiological parameters, measured in the main phenological phases, including: plant architecture, fertility, leaf anatomical traits, photosynthetic efficiency, leaf gas exchanges, nutritional status, berry and must quality. Water use efficiency was estimated through the analysis of anatomical and stable isotope traits (linked with hydraulic and resource efficiency parameters) from tree-ring series and leaf samples. Stable isotopes were also analysed in the must, in order to check the occurrence of an isotopic signature from the plants towards the must.The approach proved to be promising for achieving a comprehensive understanding on the impact of environmental constraints not only on plant behaviour, but also on the characteristics of the oenological products, furnishing at the same time a promising tool to reconstruct vine status from the isotopic trace in the must.

Sustainable grapevine cultivation and the stable production of high-quality wine is endangered by climate change in many areas of the Mediterranean region. Climate change is expected to induce rising temperatures, changes in precipitation frequency and increasing occurrence of extreme events such as severe and prolonged drought with direct effects on berry production and composition, and consequently wine quality. In this context, the monitoring and dynamic assessment of vine status with an early detection of health decline signs are needed to evaluate and adopt mitigation actions oriented to precision and sustainable agriculture (e.g., irrigation).Several indicators are reported in literature to evaluate plant health status (e.g., Ref. MAES reports), based on remote sensing, UAV techniques or in situ data collection. With remote sensing technologies, standardized information, over large areas, at low costs and with high temporal coverage, can be acquired, allowing assessment of plant indicators trends in a practical, repetitive and comparative way. However, data processing techniques do not fully reflect the overall physiological status and healthiness of plant systems. On the other hand, in situ morpho-physiological analyses at the single plant level are time-consuming and restricted to a low number of individuals compared to remote sensing or UAV techniques, not always covering the whole variability of the vineyards.This study aimed to apply an integrated multidisciplinary conceptual approach for vine health assessment, based on a systematic process for a multi-source, multi-scale and multi-temporal synergic interpretation of data with different techniques in order to cover the gaps of the single disciplines. This approach was recently developed and successfully tested on an Aglianico vineyard in Southern Italy and its applicability needs to be tested on other terroirs.Therefore, in this study, the multidisciplinary approach was calibrated and applied in a hilly environment in southern Italy (La Guardiense farm, Guardia Sanframondi, Benevento, Campania region) on Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Falanghina’ in order to assess the ability of the system to evaluate the plant status during the various phenological phases. The plant status results obtained from four sites were compared with data collected from different techniques including the monitoring of plant growth and ecophysiology as well as the reconstruction of past eco-physiological behavior through the analysis of tree rings in the stemwood.The overall results confirmed the applicability of such an approach to achieve a comprehensive assessment of the vine health status considering the continuum soil-plant-atmosphere, thus furnishing information on possible plant responses to expected environmental changes as valuable inputs to manage cultivation factors in various terroirs.

Currently, the main goal of agriculture is to support the achievement of food security in a sustainable way through the improvement of use efficiency of farm resources, increasing crop yield and quality, under climate change conditions. Farm resources use improvement, as well as the reduction of soil degradation processes, can be realized by means of high spatial and temporal resolution of field crop monitoring, aiming to manage the local spatial variability. In the case of high incomes crops, as the vineyards for high-quality wines, the monitoring of spatial behavior of plants during the growing season represents an opportunity to improve the plant management, the farmer incomes and to preserve the environmental health. However, because the field monitoring is an additional cost for the farmer, its diffusion is slow down and with it the achievement of sustainable agriculture. In the last decades, the satellite multispectral images have been widely used for the management of large areas, with a limitation in observation due to the pre-defined and fixed scale with relatively coarse spatial resolution, resulting in restrictions in their application. This paper presents a modified multiscale full-connected convolutional neural network (CNN) as a practical tool for pan-sharpening of Sentinel-2A images by UAV images. The reconstructed data are validated by independent multispectral UAV images and in-situ spectral measurements, providing a multitemporal evaluation of plant responses through a set of selected vegetation indices. The proposed methodology has been tested on plant measurements taken either in-vivo and through the retrospective reconstruction of the eco-physiological vine behavior, by the evaluation of water conductivity and water use efficiency indexes from anatomical and isotopic traits recorded in vine stem wood. Such a methodology, able to evaluate with high spatial and temporal resolution the plant responses, combining the pro and cons of space-borne and UAVs data, has been applied in a vineyard of southern Italy by analyzing the period from 2015 to 2018. The obtained results have shown a good correspondence between the vegetation indices obtained from reconstructed Sentinel-2A data and plant measurements obtained from tree-ring based retrospective reconstruction of eco-physiological behavior.

In this century, one of the main objectives of agriculture is sustainability addressed to achieve food security, based on the improvement of use efficiency of farm resources, the increasing of crop yield and quality, under climate change conditions. The optimization of farm resources, as well as the control of soil degradation processes (e.g., soil erosion), can be realized through crop monitoring in the field, aiming to manage the local spatial variability (time and space) with a high resolution. In the case of high profitability crops, as the case of vineyards for high-quality wines, the capability to manage and follow spatial behavior of plants during the season represents an opportunity to improve farmer incomes and preserve the environmental health. However, any field monitoring represents an additional cost for the farmer, which slows down the objective of a diffuse sustainable agriculture. Satellite multispectral images have been widely used for production management in large areas. However, their observation is limited by the pre-defined and fixed scale with relatively coarse spatial resolution, resulting in limitations in their application. In this paper, encouraged by recent achievements in convolutional neural network (CNN), a multiscale full-connected CNN is constructed for the pan-sharpening of Sentinel-2A images by UAV images. The reconstructed data are validated by independent multispectral UAV images and in-situ spectral measurements. The reconstructed Sentinel-2A images provide a temporal evaluation of plant responses using selected vegetation indices. The proposed methodology has been tested on plant measurements taken either in-vivo and through the retrospective reconstruction of the eco-physiological vine behavior, by the evaluation of water conductivity and water use efficiency indexes from anatomical and isotopic traits recorded in vine trunk wood. In this study, the use of such a methodology able to combine the pro and cons of space-borne and UAVs data to evaluate plant responses, with high spatial and temporal resolution, has been applied in a vineyard of southern Italy by analyzing the period from 2015 to 2018. The obtained results have shown a good correspondence between the vegetation indexes obtained from reconstructed Sentinel-2A data and plant hydraulic traits obtained from tree-ring based retrospective reconstruction of vine eco-physiological behavior.