A comparison of the effect of temperature on grapevine phenology between vineyards

Wendy Cameron,E.W.R Barlow,Chelsea Jarvis,Kate Howell,Paul R Petrie,Sigfredo Fuentes

doi:10.20870/oeno-one.2021.55.2.4599

Abstract

The variability of grapevine phenological stages under climate change has been studied in many winegrowing regions, with many reporting an advancement of the major phenological stages, particularly flowering, veraison and harvest. This study aimed to compare these regional patterns to integrate our understanding of grapevine responses. Average daily January–March (JFM) mean temperatures were correlated with day of year budburst (DBUD) and average daily springtime March–May (MAM) maximum temperatures were correlated with day of year flowering (DFLO), day of year veraison (DVER) and day of year harvest (DHAR) for 17 vineyards and showed an advancement of the associated phenological stage with increased temperature for each index. There were significant differences between vineyard groups for the rate of advancement of DBUD, DVER and DHAR which suggests that the response of phenological stage to temperature is not linear and varies between cultivars. Only the interval between DBUD and DFLO showed a significant shortening as related to MAMMax, suggesting that the advancement of grape maturity as related to increasing springtime maximum temperature is largely due to the shortening of the DBUD to DFLO interval.

Highlights

Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring plant and animal life cycle stages and their relationship to climate (Schwartz, 2013)
While the initial search containing the term pheno* may have been finding sources with the word phenostage or phenophase as well as phenological stage, they were finding many references related to phenolic composition in grapes and wine or phenotype
Our analysis suggested that the 3-month temperature summation from January–March using the mean daily temperature summation (JFMMean) was best correlated with day of year budburst (DBUD) across this range of vineyards and that the 3-month summation for the springtime months March–May using maximum daily temperature summation (MAMMax) was best correlated with the other three phenological stages; day of year flowering (DFLO), day of year veraison (DVER) and day of year harvest (DHAR)

Summary

Introduction

Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring plant and animal life cycle stages and their relationship to climate (Schwartz, 2013). Notwithstanding, changes in the timing of the major grapevine phenological stages; budburst, flowering, veraison and maturity (Coombe, 1988), have been well documented with a general advancement in the timing of flowering, veraison and maturity having been shown over recent decades (Cameron et al, 2020; Jones and Davis, 2000; Petrie and Sadras, 2008; Tomasi et al, 2011; Webb et al, 2011), with concomitant warming trends (Jones et al, 2005) and these advancements are predicted to continue (Costa et al, 2019). Cook et al (2012) pointed out that not all plant species had shown advancement of phenological stages in response to warming temperatures and offered that this may be explained by the competing temperature effect on dormancy and budburst, and other factors such as the influence of photoperiod (Nendel, 2010). Budburst timing is influenced by pruning timing (Martin and Dunn, 2000; Moran et al, 2017) and vine reserves (Williams et al, 1985) which may be being impacted by the timing of the previous advancing harvest (Hall et al, 2016)

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