NEWSLETTER
September 2018
Advancing research to maximize the productivity, sustainability and competitiveness
 of the American grape industries.


DOV (dry on the vine) raisin grapes on an overhead trellis

PORTRAIT OF THE PERFECT GRAPEVINE
If you could grow the perfect grapevine, what would it be or do? What would its fruit be or look like? How would it perform throughout the season, given your climate, soil and labor availability? Essentially, these were the dreams grape and wine industry representatives were asked to entertain when surveyed about the most desirable grape traits.
In This Issue
In order to help guide current and future grapevine breeding and/or genetics research, like VitisGen2, NGRA's Genetics & Grapevine Improvement Research Theme Committee recently surveyed grape growers and producers to understand the traits--by sector and, for wine grapes, by region--that are most highly desired. Industry subject-matter experts from each sector and from grape-growing regions across the U.S. were polled.
 
The traits that ranked most highly across all grape and wine sectors are:
  • High and consistent yield
  • Uniform ripening
  • Resistance/tolerance to mealybugs (associated with the transmission of leafroll virus)
  • Resistance/tolerance to powdery mildew
  • Looser grape clusters
  • Resistance/tolerance to heat or cold
  • Facilitation of mechanization (For example, the amenability for spur pruning due to fruitfulness in lower bud positions, as cited in the raisin and table grape surveys, would likely facilitate robotic pruning. Identifying additional traits that would promote the employment of automated and/or mechanized viticultural practices would be of great interest.)
View or download the complete report, including results for wine, juice, table and raisin grapes, broken out by sector and region. Apparently, this is the stuff dreams are made of, if you're a grape grower or producer!
Donnell Brown
President
AROUND THE INDUSTRY
REMINDER: NOMINATIONS DUE FOR RICH SMITH AWARD

The late Richard (Rich) Smith of Paraiso Vineyards and Smith Family Wines was first and foremost a family man, and also a successful grape grower, winery owner and respected colleague. Before his passing in 2015, due to his significant and selfless contributions of time, energy and funds to organizations that advance the American grape and wine industry, he came to be known as a highly effective, collegial and tireless leader. Three of those organizations--the National Grape Research Alliance, WineAmerica and the Winegrape Growers of America--together with the Smith Family, collaborate to annually bestow the Rich Smith Distinguished Service Award. The award honors Rich as it recognizes a leader who demonstrates similar qualities and makes a similarly positive impact on the industry, such as past recipients John Martini (Anthony Road Wine Co.) and Pete Downs (Family Winemakers of California).  See the award criteria and simple nomination form  and make your nomination(s) by October 26, 2018. 
FARM BILL EXPIRES

With Congress adjourned until after the mid-term elections, the current Farm Bill will expire this Sunday, September 30. Thirty-nine "orphan programs" authorized by the Farm Bill will expire, too. In the Research title, these include Organic Agricultural Research and Extension and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, and in the Trade title, the Foreign Market Development Program and Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops. The four leaders of the Senate and House Ag Committee Leaders met this week and issued this statement on progress of the 2018 Farm Bill: "Each of us is still at the negotiating table, and we remain committed to working together on a Farm Bill. Our conversations are productive, and progress toward an agreement is taking shape. We are going to get this right."
NEW AD CAMPAIGN PROMOTES TABLE GRAPES' HEALTH BENEFITS

Those table grapes  you had at breakfast today may help you maintain a healthy heart, brain and colon. "It is already established that grapes are a heart-healthy food, and emerging research in the areas of brain and colon health suggests that grapes may have an even broader role to play in long-term health," says Kathleen Nave, president of the California Table Grape Commission and NGRA Board member. A new ad campaign highlights the benefits of consuming table grapes every day.
USDA TO MOVE NIFA AND ERS OUT OF DC

The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to relocate its Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) by the end of 2019. "Not very much agriculture goes on in Washington, DC," said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, "so it makes sense that most of our people work in settings outside our capital city." The move was  announced in August, and this month  the USDA extended the deadline to October 15 for proposals from organizations interested in hosting the agencies. NIFA administers two of our most important grant programs: the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) and the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI).
NEW NIFA DIRECTOR NAMED

Congratulations to  Dr. J. Scott Angle, who was nominated this month as the next Director of the USDA-NIFA for a six-year term. A soil microbiologist by training, Dr. Angle comes from the International Fertilizer Development Center.
REMINDER: 'NIFA LISTENS' SESSIONS START SOON
 
The USDA-NIFA is soliciting stakeholder input on the emerging needs and opportunities in food and agricultural sciences through its initiative, "NIFA Listens: Investing in Science to Transform Lives." NGRA stakeholders participated in locally held listening sessions last year; the tour resumes in October at various locations nationwide.  Check the schedule to see if there's a session near you. We urge you to attend and/or send feedback via the NIFA Listens website or email. 

RESEARCH UPDATE
USDA-ARS TO LAUNCH BREEDING INSIGHT PLATFORM

Seeking to bring innovations in genomics and informatics to its specialty crop breeding programs, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) hopes to launch a new Breeding Insight Platform (BIP), to be located at Cornell University's main campus in Ithaca, NY.
 
The BIP will support breeding projects across ARS by building a core team of specialists in information technology, genomics and breeding process design that will partner with individual ARS pre-breeding and breeding groups such as the Grape Genetics Research Unit in Geneva, NY, and the grape genetics program at the San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Sciences Center in Parlier, CA. The initial two years, beginning in 2019, will focus on recruiting the BIP team and honing the agency's existing informatics tools for better interoperability and scaling them to the needs of smaller breeding programs. In parallel, a team of coordinators will interact with selected breeding programs to understand their needs.
 
Initially, the platform will address four use cases: efficient genotyping, pedigree verification, genomic prediction and identification of novel favorable variants. In the first two years, the project will focus on five breeding programs ( grape, blueberry, sweet potato, alfalfa and rainbow trout) during the pilot phase. In years 3 through 5, the project will expand to the remaining pre-breeding and breeding programs. The project may eventually scale to support 50 to 100 programs across ARS.
 
"The numerous USDA-ARS breeding programs focused on specialty crops and animals have not benefited sufficiently from the genomics and informatics revolution of breeding. It is now possible to combine breeding approaches with genomics and informatics to accurately predict some of the traits and performance of an individual long before it is ever grown," says Ed Buckler, who is championing the project with Jean-Luc Jannink, both Research Geneticists at USDA-ARS and Adjunct Professors of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University. "The BIP leverages recent improvements in genomics and open source informatics components, and partners with small breeding programs, enabling these programs to harness these incredibly powerful tools to accelerate their genetic gains."
 
ARS is seeking a Breeding Insight Project Director to lead the team.  Learn more and apply.
CORRECTION: FUNGICIDE RESISTANCE PROJECT

Last month, we reported that the important project, "FRAME: Fungicide Resistance Assessment, Mitigation and Extension Network for Wine, Table and Raisin Grapes," had received funding from the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI). We said then that it had been funded for two years and $2.4 million. But this is just the first two years of funding for the four-year, $4.75 million project. Washington State University's Dr. Michelle Moyer leads the project, which began this month and will run through August 2022.
SURVEY: THE ECONOMICS OF BRETTANOMYCES

Got Brett? Economists at the UC Davis Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science are surveying winemakers worldwide to determine the economic impact of Brettanomyces bruxellensis to the industry. The project will factor in costs for testing, management and control measures, and dollar losses associated with downgrading wine value or not selling wines due to contamination and compromised quality. Take the 20-question survey.

IN THE NEWS
September 2018 | AWRI eNews
The Australian Wine Research Institute, in collaboration with several partners, has produced a high-quality genome assembly for Chardonnay. The team identified 1,620 genetic markers that distinguish 15 Chardonnay clones, revealing a less than dignified heritage for the noble cultivar.
 
September 20, 2018 | Washington Post
Temperatures not much warmer than they are now were sufficient to melt a major part of the Antarctic ice sheet 125,000 years ago when sea levels were 20 to 30 feet higher. "It doesn't need to be a very big warming, as long as it stays 2 degrees warmer for a sufficient time, this is the end game," said one of the authors of this new research.
 
September 19, 2018 | Wine-Seearcher.com
Two Microsoft alumni are working together on an ambitious project on Washington State's Red Mountain to make Rhone style wines on a mountain ridge that was considered unplantable. "There's no soil. There's no water. It's very windy, and it's hot," says its vineyard manager. "You're (basically) drilling into basalt lava." The project has been 14 years in the making; the first grapes are being harvested this month.
 
September 14, 2018 | Indianapolis Business Journal
Much of the credit for the rise of Indiana's wine industry belongs to the Purdue Wine Grape Team. Over the last two decades, this four-person cadre of experts has been instrumental both in husbanding the local winemaking industry and in raising its profile nationwide.
 
September 13, 2018 | Cornell Chronicle
Cornell University's Dr. Bruce Reisch, professor of horticulture in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and grape breeder at Cornell AgriTech, has developed the first truly seedless Concord-type grape. Named Everest Seedless, the new blue table grape variety is cold-tolerant, able to withstand temps as low as 10 to 15 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and has giant berries weighing up to 7 grams, or roughly twice the size of the traditional Concord.
 
September 12, 2018 | The Spokesman-Review
Smoke taint is a bigger issue in wine grapes than other fruit, because when they're made into wine, the skins stew in the juice, where smoke particles sink in, says Washington State University's Dr. Tom Collins, the foremost expert on smoke taint in the US. Although most grapes aren't affected if exposed to small amounts of smoke, there's no general agreement in the industry on when smoke taint will appear and when it won't. Collins is aiming to fix that.
 
September 11, 2018 | The Press Democrat
Seeking to determine whether a working vineyard can serve as an active carbon sink, Jackson Family Wines is running a five-year experiment to try to increase the carbon held in the soil on 22 acres in the Russian River Valley. Jackson and the Sonoma Resource Conservation District received a $100,000 state grant to conduct the research.
 
September 10, 2018 | Wines & Vines
At a symposium called "New Cultivars for Disease Resistance and Increased Sustainability" on August 29, Michigan State University's Dr. Paolo Sabbatini and Thomas Todaro helped to introduce the disease-resistant wine grape varieties developed in Italy, some of which are already commercially available and "appear to be more cold-tolerant than expected."
 
September 10, 2018 | Stuff.co.nz
Autonomous tractors in New Zealand still need a worker on board to steer through turns and keep an eye on things. But they're driving up the labor debate across the country's wine industry.
 
August 30, 2018 | American Vineyard Magazine
NGRA Vice Chair Rick Stark of Sun-Maid talks with American Vineyard Magazine about the slow-down effect smoke from wildfires seems to have on the ripening of raisin grapes.
 
August 29, 2018 | WSU Insider
Researchers at Washington State University have successfully cloned leafroll 3 virus, whose genome is one of the largest among plant viruses. The team is now working to learn how its genes create symptoms of disease in grapevines. Said Dr. Naidu Rayapati, "This resource will help us build a better understanding of leafroll 3, and better defenses against it. We can make an enemy into an ally."
 
August 28, 2018 | California Dept. of Food and Agriculture
Warning that two-thirds of Southern California's beaches could completely disappear and the average area burned by wildfires could nearly double by 2100, California's Fourth Climate Change Assessment details new science on the devastating impacts of climate change and provides planning tools to support the state's response. Click the headline above for a short summary or view the full report here.
 
August 27, 2018 | Good VItis
When does wine become wine? The day fermentation begins? When fermentation ends? The day it is put into barrel...or bottle? Winemakers from across the country weigh in.
 
Monterey growers combat red leaf viruses
August 24, 2018 | Wines & Vines
Recognizing that pests and diseases don't respect property lines, Monterey County (CA) winegrape growers are addressing red leaf viruses and vine mealybug collectively through a co-created management plan, assisted by the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association.
 
August 10, 2018 | National Geographic
Crispr has the potential to change the foods we eat (and drink) every day, boosting flavor, disease resistance and yields, and even tackling allergens, working only with nature's own tools. The easy-to-understand graphic included in the article explains how it works.

Find these stories and more, published as we find them, on the NGRA Facebook page.

UPCOMING EVENTS
November 4-5, 2018
Texas Grape Camp
Fredericksburg, TX
 
November 12, 2018
NGRA End-of-Year Board Meeting
Paso Robles, CA
 
November 12-14, 2018
Sustainable Ag Expo
San Luis Obispo, CA
 
November 15, 2018
Washington 2018 Grape & Wine Issues Caucus
Yakima, WA

November 30, 2018
2018 Recent Advances in Viticulture & Enology
Davis, CA
 
January 28, 2019
NGRA First-of-Year Board Meeting & Annual Meeting of the Members
Sacramento, CA
 
January 29-31, 2019
Unified Wine & Grape Symposium
Sacramento, CA
 
Find all upcoming events on the NGRA website.