"Nature vs. nurture" is not just a human debate: Every organism with DNA is influenced by its environment.
With that in mind, a new project led by Cornell researchers will explore how genetically identical grapevines adapt to differences in temperature, humidity, soils and other environmental factors in New York, Missouri and South Dakota.
The $2.3 million project, funded by the National Science Foundation, will aid grape growers and winemakers as they cope with increasingly erratic climate conditions by uncovering the most adaptable varieties.
"A chardonnay vine in New York and a chardonnay vine in France are genetic twins, which means you can specifically explore how the plant genome interacts with its environment," said Jason Londo, associate professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science's Horticulture Section at Cornell AgriTech. "There are lots of different species we could use to do this study, but grapes are the perfect plant to use because, in winemaking, we already have a cultural passion around this concept of how the environment influences the way genes are expressed: terroir."
From the French for "lands," terroir refers to the various ways that a vineyard's climate, farming practices, soil composition and other factors influence a wine's flavor.
"Scientifically, we call terroir 'plasticity' - the ability for a species to adapt to many different environments and climate conditions," Londo said. "Those who enjoy wine usually think of terroir in terms of the juice or wine itself, but in truth, the leaves are optimizing, the roots are optimizing, the branches are optimizing - there's terroir everywhere."
Another aim of the project will be to elucidate basic scientific understanding of epigenetics - the study of how and which genes and gene clusters can be modified under different environmental pressures and influence how an organism's DNA is expressed. These findings could inform research and plant breeding on any crop that reproduces asexually and, thus, creates genetically identical offspring, including apples, cherries, peaches, potatoes, bananas and strawberries.
"We want to know which components of the genome are under the greatest manipulation by the environment," Londo said. "With that information, you could think about how to stimulate the genome with certain pressures, or maybe you could breed for those components that are more sensitive or more resistant to environmental pressures, depending on the outcome you want to achieve in the vineyard, such as drought resistance or heat tolerance."
Londo is leading the project at Cornell but working with colleagues at Pennsylvania State University, South Dakota State University, Missouri State University and the nonprofit Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Olivette, Missouri.
The researchers collaborated on a previous project, which included creating at Cornell AgriTech a nursery of Marquette grapevines grafted onto five different commercial rootstocks and 220 newly developed rootstocks. Grafting one grape variety onto the roots of a different one is a common practice in vineyards because it allows growers to access multiple strengths and resiliencies, such as cold hardiness or disease resistance.
In the current project, those young vines have been cloned and transplanted in three different locations, in New York, Missouri and South Dakota. Assessing how genetically identical plants perform in the cold and wet climate of New York, the hot and wet environment of Missouri, and the cold and dry environment of South Dakota will enable researchers to make recommendations tailored to grape growers in each location.
The researchers hope their recommendations will support the grape and wine industries in those states and help growers adapt to a rapidly changing climate, Londo said.
"With perennial fruit crops like grapes, we don't plant new seeds every year. If the climate is becoming less reliable, we can't just plant a new seed, like the lettuce or bean growers can," he said. "So we need to either identify rootstocks that work well everywhere, or we need to find the specific rootstocks that are optimal for each region."
Krisy Gashler is a writer for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
