Grapevine Trunk Diseases Management in Vineyards from Central Transylvania

Abstract

Grapevine trunk diseases (GTD) are among the most important diseases reported in vineyards in central Transylvania. On average, up to 5% of the vineyards are affected by the GTD although there are also vineyards where the incidence of the attack exceeds 15%. Recent studies show that the importance of pathogens in wood is so great that they are considered limiting factors that affect the stability of the world’s vineyards. The main objective of this study is to develop new sustainable management alternatives for the GTD control. For this purpose, an agroecological variant including prophylactic and cultural measures and two treatments with biofungicides based on: Trichoderma atroviride strain 8, Trichoderma atroviride strain B11 and Trichoderma harzianum, were tested. The frequency of the attack of the main four GTD diseases (Esca complex, Phomopsis dieback, Eutypa dieback and Crown gall) on the SCDVV Blaj homologated grapevine varieties, ‘Astra’, ‘Amurg’, ‘Brumariu’, ‘Blasius’ ‘Radames’, ‘Rubin’ and ‘Selena’, was assessed showing that these had a lower frequency of the symptoms compared with the widely cultivated variety ‘Feteasca regala’. Also the effect of training system (Classical versus semi-high Guyot) on GTD is presented. The classical system had decreased the frequency of crown gall and Phomopsis dieback, and the semi-high Guyot system had decreased Eutypa dieback’s frequency, indicating that the training system is an important tool of the agroecological system in maintaing the health of grapevine. Biofungicides tested help reduce the symptoms of GTD, but not enough to help reduce the premature death of grapevine.