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Regional Innovation and Technology Adoption (RITA) Projects

At a regional level VitUM collaborates with wine regions to undertake appropriate research of regional impact. Currently VitUM is undertaking two Regional Innovation and Technology Adoption (RITA) Projects funded by the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation.

In the first RITA project VitUM is working with the Strathbogie Ranges Wine Region to develop a spatially referenced inventory of viticultural resources, environments and management practices in current and future climates using GIS technology .This digital overview of the region’s diversity and vineyard resources will be used by the region to develop regional differentiation and enhance future growth and marketing.

The second RITA project, with the Goulburn Valley, Strathbogie Ranges and Yarra Valley Wine Regions aims to dramatically improve our understanding of vine responses to frost for a range of important Australian cultivars and develop set of guidelines outlining appropriate management responses to frost. In June this year we hosted two Frost Workshops in the Yarra and Goulburn Valleys. Presenting at the workshop was Dr. David Morrison from Bureau of Meteorology, Dr. Mike Trought from Marlborough Research Center in New Zealand, Dr. Tom Hill and Sonja Needs. A pod cast of the workshop will be available soon.

Onwards and Upwards

As invariably happens to all students, they finish at some point and move on with their careers. Alison Oke submitted her PhD thesis in July and was thrilled to accept a new position at Bureau of Meteorology. We wish her all the best in her future career. Bethany Collins is also moving forward. We were delighted that Bethany has decided to remain in the Viticultural industry taking up a new position with Fosters Wine in the Yarra Valley as a Regional Technical Officer. We look forward to continuing to work with Bethany in future collaborations. Bethany starts her new position in September.

Professor Greg Jones to Visit

VitUM was delighted to host Professor Greg Jones from Southern Oregon University on a Melbourne University Miergunyah Fellowship. Professor Jones, internationally recognised for his research in the use of quantitative methods in spatial and temporal analysis to evaluate the impacts of climate change on agricultural industries. While Prof Jones was here he worked with Snow Barlow, Leanne Webb and other VitUM members on the impacts of the global wine industry to climate change.

[Photo: Bethany Collins and Greg Jones]
Bethany Collins and Prof Greg Jones enjoy a glass of wine in the Barossa Valley after the recent AWIT Conference in July.

Wine and frozen water don’t mix: quantification of ice nucleating bacteria on grapevines

Dr.Tom Hill visited us on a sabbatical from the University of East London (UEL) last year to work on a collaboration with VitUM. Tom has decided to stay on as a visiting fellow working with Sonja Needs and the VitUM group extending the research into the role of Ice Nucleating Bacteria on Australia’s economically important grapevine cultivars.

Frost has damaged vines in Victoria in two out of the last three winters. This may reflect a trend toward colder winter episodes in south-eastern Australia, a possible consequence of climate change. Super-cooled dew requires a nucleating particle to freeze (pure water freezes at -37.5oC). Among the most active ice nucleators are several bacterial species which, by expressing an ice nucleation (IN) protein, can catalyse freezing at up to -1oC (Morris et al. 2004). They commonly occur on plants and are well known to cause frost damage (Lindow et al. 1978, Morris et al., 2004). Following a European Science Foundation-sponsored workshop, in Avignon in 2006, to examine the interplay between vegetation, bioaerosols and atmospheric processes, we have collaborated with Cindy Morris’s group at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Avignon, to develop PCR-based protocols to detect all known alleles of the IN gene (Guilbard et al., 2007). The proposed project will be the first practical application of these methods. We aim to detect and quantify IN genes, and measure their relative abundance in bacterial population of the phyllosphere, on four Vitis cultivars. These are currently being studied for their frost recovery responses by Sonja Needs and Greg Dunn. We also aim to test for a correlation between presence/abundance of the gene and frost damage, either natural or experimentally induced.

Collaboration with E&J Gallo winery

VitUM has also formed a collaborative relationship with Dr Nick Dokoozlian of E & J Gallo Wine in California (formerly UC Davis) that has resulted Mark Foletta, an honours student working with Nick in California on a Gallo an internship. PhD student Andrea Watt also visited Gallo Wines in early 2008 to collaborate on a joint research project investigating grapevine reproduction.

Melbourne School of Land and Environment VitUM