Abstract
Climate change models predict lower precipitation and higher air temperatures that will negatively affect viticultural regions. Irrigation of vineyards will be crucial for mitigating abiotic stress during the growing season. However, the environmental impact of irrigation requires consideration for ensuring its sustainability in the future. We evaluated the standard irrigation practices on grapevine water use efficiency, berry flavonoid composition, vineyard water footprint, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi-grapevine symbiosis in two seasons with contrasting amounts of precipitation. The irrigation treatments consisted of weekly replacement of 25, 50, and 100% of crop evapotranspiration (ETc) during two growing seasons. Irrigation in grapevine vineyards mitigated the water scarcity when precipitation during the dormant season was not sufficient. The results provided field data supporting that despite the low rainfall recorded in one of the seasons, increasing the amount of irrigation was not advised, and replacing 50% ETc was sufficient. In this treatment, berry composition was improved with increased contents of total soluble solids, anthocyanins, and flavonols, and a stable flavonoid profile without an economic decrease in yield. In addition, with 50% ETc, the mycorrhizal symbiosis was not compromised and water resources were not highly impacted. Altogether, our results provide fundamental knowledge for viticulturists to design an appropriate irrigation schedule under the future warming scenarios with minimal environmental impact in semi-arid regions facing warming trends.
Highlights
Global warming trends due to climate change are likely to continue at the current rate, leading to temperature increases of 1.5–4.5◦C between 2030 and 2052 (IPCC et al, 2018)
This study evaluated the effect of applied water amounts based on the replacement of fractions of the ETc for maintaining berry quality while minimizing yield losses due to the environmental impact
The results achieved in this study indicated that 25% and 50% ETc treatments were effective in improving Intrinsic water use efficiency (iWUE) compared with previous studies reporting a compilation of data from Cabernet Sauvignon and other cultivars (11.2–103 μmol CO2 ·mmol H2O−1) (Tomás et al, 2014; Bota et al, 2016)
Summary
Global warming trends due to climate change are likely to continue at the current rate, leading to temperature increases of 1.5–4.5◦C between 2030 and 2052 (IPCC et al, 2018). Changes in precipitation patterns, frequencies of heatwaves, droughts, and a general increase in evapotranspiration (ET) rates are expected (IPCC et al, 2018). These changes would in turn, affect soil moisture, ground water table, storage of water in reservoirs, and the salinization of shallow aquifers (Bates et al, 2008). Alam et al (2019) recently reported that increases in water demand and decreases in surface water supply caused by a warming climate might negatively affect groundwater storage, especially in regions like the San Joaquin Valley of California, where groundwater reserve is already stressed. Evidence support the necessity of finding sustainable practices in vineyard production systems for longtime exploitation of natural resources, such as water and soil
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