Climate-resilient and mildew-resistant grapevines have been planted in South Australia to help protect Australia’s $45 billion wine industry
New mildew-resistant and drought-resilient grapevines have been planted in South Australia’s Coonawarra wine region to help safeguard the future of Australia’s wine industry against a changing climate and disease threats.
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, and Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) partnered to future-proof some of the most collected wines in the region from old vines, with the first vines of the new progeny recently planted at Wynns Coonawarra Estate.
The new grapevines blend genetics from TWE’s heritage vines in Coonawarra and Barossa Valley, which have enhanced climate resilience, with mildew-resistant traits developed through years of selective breeding by CSIRO, with funding from Wine Australia.
Powdery and downy mildew costs the Australian wine sector an estimated $160 million in management expenses and production losses annually, according to CSIRO.
CSIRO research scientist and project lead Paul Boss says breeding mildew resistance into elite vines gives future grapevines a genetic advantage to withstand these disease-causing pathogens.
“Using traditional breeding methods, we introduced two distinct genes to the Wynns heritage vines, which give resistance to downy mildew and powdery mildew,” Boss says.
“These are from CSIRO-developed breeding lines that confer robust disease resistance and other quality traits onto their progeny.
“Having resistance genes for both powdery and downy mildew makes these plants more robust as it is unlikely the pathogens can break both sources of resistance with a single mutation.”
Through decades of exposure to climate extremes of hot, cold, wet and dry, CSIRO says the heritage vines from the Wynns and Penfolds vineyards have developed a natural resilience to drought, making them prime candidates for further development to enhance their tolerance to climate extremes.
Chief supply and sustainability officer at Treasury Wine Estates Kerrin Petty says the global wine industry faces significant challenges managing grapevine disease pressure sustainably while also managing the increasingly variable growing conditions created by the changing climate.
“In partnering with CSIRO for this important project, we’re combining the genetics of heritage Australian vines from our renowned Wynns Coonawarra Estate and Penfolds brands with scientific research and innovation,” Petty says.
“Creating mildew resistant vines that are also able to withstand climatic variation means we’re setting up our vineyards to continue producing world-famous wine for generations to come.”
The resulting superior cultivars are expected to require fewer inputs, such as the application of fungicide sprays, which will likely lead to additional sustainability benefits including lower carbon emissions from less frequent use of diesel-powered tractors in vineyards.