Exploring the grapevine metabolic plasticity under drought

Phenotypic plasticity is defined as the amount by which the expressions of individual characteristics of a genotype are changed by different environments. The PlasticGrape project will study the grapevine metabolic plasticity under drought by characterizing the vine metabolism response to water stress in two climatically distinct environments (Tulln-Austria and Vipava-Slovenia). The central hypothesis of the project is that climatic variables (such as light and temperature) play a crucial role influencing the plant response to drought, in particular its metabolic reprogramming. Consequently, the same genotype would exhibit different phenotype under drought in different climatic conditions (i.e. plasticity). Although the water stress effect on grapevines has been largely studied, very limited efforts were done to understand the interaction between the water availability and other climatic factors such as light and temperature. The PlasticGrape project is specifically designed to fill this gap, shed light on the interactive effects of drought and climatic variables on the plant physiology, and strength our knowledge on the plant adaptation mechanisms to different environments as well as to possible climate change scenarios. To fulfill our objectives, a set of grapevines (cv. Pinot noir grafted onto 5BB rootstock) that was previously planted and grown in one single environment (Tulln) for two years, will be split in two different locations characterized by different climates (Tulln and Vipava, cool and warm climates, respectively). In both locations, mirrored water deficit experiments will be performed with the aim to study the interactive effects of water stress and climate on the plant physiology and metabolism. A similar experimental set-up was never implemented for any other crop before. Moreover, metabolite profiling will allow a comprehensive characterization of the plant metabolism adaptation strategy to drought and its environmental plasticity. To date, no study has addressed the genotype x environment interaction in such way. Greenhouse experiments will be also included to fully control and manipulate environmental variables. Bearing in mind that grapevine is considered a model crop for water stress studies the potential outcomes will largely impact the plant science knowledge.