Assessment of Falanghina vine status at different spatial and temporal scales by means of a smart multiple spatial and temporal resolution system

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.