Abstract
The travel had three main objectives:
to attend the 17th GiESCO meeting in Asti, Italy and gain insight into recent developments in vine physiology, training and management
present an oral presentation on 'Rootstocks, a tool to manipulate vine growth characteristics, fruit composition and wine quality attributes, water use efficiency and drought tolerance' and a poster on ‘Recovery of Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines from long term water deficits’.
meet with key researchers involved in the new European rootstock physiology project, ‘Root tolerance and acclimation to abiotic stresses: knowledge and tools for improving temperate tree species breeding and cultivation’.
Summary
The main purpose of the travel was for Peter Clingeleffer to attend the 17th GiESCO symposium in Asti, Italy, 29th August – 2 September 2011, the international group of viticultural researchers involved in vine training and management. An oral paper on ‘Rootstocks, a tool to manipulate vine growth characteristics, fruit composition and wine quality attributes, water use efficiency and drought tolerance’ (Clingeleffer et. al. 2011) and a poster on ‘Recovery of Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines from long term water deficits’ (Edwards and Clingeleffer 2011) were presented and published in the refereed proceedings of the symposium . Peter Clingeleffer also participated in the GiESCO Scientific Committee meeting as an Australian delegate.
It was also planned to meet with key researchers from France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, and Italy who have been involved in the development of a new rootstock physiology project in Europe at the GiESCO symposium. Discussions were had with Oriana Silvestroni (Ancona, Italy), Jesus Yuste (Spain) and Hans Schultz and Manfred Stoll (Geisenheim, Germany). Unfortunately, the project ‘Root tolerance and acclimation to abiotic stresses: knowledge and tools for improving temperate tree species breeding and cultivation’, coordinated by Davide Neri, from the Universita Politecnia dele Marche in Ancona was not funded as part of the EU research program. Hence travel to meet with Davide Neri was not undertaken. Instead, a day was spent with Anna Schneider who is involved in vine improvement and ampelographic studies at the University of Turin and a visit made to one of the key germplasm collections in Italy. Note: In discussion, Hans Schultz indicated that the FACE system to be used for elevated CO2 climate change studies was not functional, largely due to budget restraints.