VITISBIO® project
Innovation Project VITISBIO
The increasing aggressiveness and spread of emerging plant pathogens in grapevine nurseries is increasingly compromising the sanitary quality of the propagation material. The complexity of the problem lies in the plurality of the pathogens involved: grapevine trunk diseases, bacteriosis, phytoplasma and new viruses.
In addition, the methodologies and tools conventionally used to guarantee the minimal sanitary standards required by the current legislation show a certain fragility and have however a particularly strong impact on the nursery chain from an environmental and economic point of view.
The need to face significant phytosanitary problems, in a legislative context in progressive evolution toward an low environmental impact agriculture, represents an important impulse for the development of eco-friendly nursery strategies, based first of all on the sanitary quality of the production and on the environmental and economic sustainability in the long term.
European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe invests in rural areas
The project is funded by the Rural Development Plan 2014-2020 of the Region Friuli Venezia Giulia –
Step 16.1.1 Support to the constitution and the management
of the EIP operating group on the agricultural productivity and sustainability
Regional Decree 5592/AGFOR of 27/10/2017 for the granted amount of € 20.060,00
Regional Decree 402/AGFOR of 21/01/2020 for the granted amount of € 349.785,84
The partnership
As part of the Rural Development Plan 2014-2020 of the region Friuli Venezia Giulia, Vitis Rauscedo, in partnership with the CREA - Research Centre for Viticulture and Enology of Conegliano, the University of Florence and the Consortium of Collio Wines, has established an Innovation Project for the development of a sustainable and organic grapevine nursery supply chain with an efficient control of the emerging grapevine diseases.
The objectives
Based on the experience in the field of the grapevine nursery and on the recognized competences in the phytopathological research, the Working Group cooperates at the development of innovative methods aimed at the containment of emerging plant diseases in the nursery chain, operating in the organic farming system.
Overall, the general aims of the Innovation Project are:
- application of phytosanitary strategies with reduced environmental and economic impact;
- conservation of indigenous viticulture biodiversity;
- the growth of technical skills of the agricultural producers and operators;
- the dissemination of organic viticulture methods.
In this operational framework, the cooperation between the operators of the nursery sector and the research system contributes first of all to the achievement of the objectives of the rural development policy and the EIP (European Innovation Partnership), increasing the competitiveness of the company chain through the integration of specific scientific competences and professional skills, in order to face the problem in a systematic and rational way and to seize the opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of production, as well as to reduce the costs of the same.
The activities
The Innovation Project experiments innovative methods that maximize the sanitary quality of the propagation material, operating under organic farming and developing a nursery chain with a reduced environmental and economic impact.
Through a cooperation plan, the following aspects are tested and evaluated:
- the incidence and control of trunk pathogens in relation to the cultivation method of rootstocks;
- the incidence and control of trunk pathogens in relation to the disinfection method of the propagation material;
- the incidence and control of trunk pathogens in relation to the grafting method of the propagation material;
- the evaluation of the association between graft disaffinity and presence of virus in the propagation material;
- the development of a protocol of mass conservative selection of the propagation material;
- the economic and environmental balance following the introduction of the new protocols.
