Since the 1990s, Wine Australia has co-invested with Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, to breed new grapevine varieties with resistance to powdery mildew and downy mildew.
These varieties significantly reduce the need for fungicide application, lowering chemical use in the vineyard, reducing the cost of production and crop loss, lowering vineyard emissions and improving sustainability of the Australian wine sector.
New rootstock varieties with resistance to phylloxera and root knot nematodes have also been developed.
These breeding programs, together with a number of other projects, were part of a strategic research agreement with CSIRO that concluded in June 2022. The final reports on these projects have recently been published on the Wine Australia website. They are:
- CSA 1701 - 1.1, which describes a generation of premium winegrape varieties with two genes each for powdery and downy mildew resistance,
- CSA 1701 - 1.2, in which genetic markers were identified for desirable sensory traits, such as stable anthocyanins and red-fleshed berries,
- CSA 1701 - 1.3, which assessed the long-term field performance of CSIRO-bred and commercial rootstocks and initiated development of Gen 2 rootstocks with durable resistance to root-knot nematodes and phylloxera,
- CSA 1701 - 3.1, in which technologies developed in previous projects on vineyard management were evaluated in commercial trials, and
- CSA 1701-1.6, which describes replicated field trials of the 20 ‘best’ mildew-resistant red and white grapevine selections, leading to industry trials.
A further project (CSP 1501), which validated the name and DNA profile of all the vine material in the CSIRO and SARDI germplasm collections as well as the unique material in other collections, paved the way for the provisional reopening of the CSIRO collection, which has been closed to the industry since 2009. Access and distribution of the priority varieties from this collection is one of the aims of the National Grapevine Collection program - a collaborative project funded by Wine Australia and involving propagation and sector stakeholders, research organisations and service providers with the goal of delivering a national system of centrally-coordinated grapevine assets and resources that are appropriately resourced, established, maintained and protected into the future.
Meanwhile, a new portfolio of Wine Australia investments with CSIRO for grapevine germplasm improvement is halfway through a five-year term. Delivered through three separate projects, these investments involve new ‘DNA-free’ gene editing technology to produce improved scions as well as conventional breeding for improved rootstocks.
Further details on these projects can be found below:
- CSA 2301-1: Enabling technologies for production of improved clones of existing premium winegrape varieties using ‘DNA-free’ gene-editing,
- CSA 2301-2: Premium winegrape varieties within improved fungal pathogen tolerance and quality traits through gene-editing, and
- CSA 2301-3: Durable pest resistant grapevine rootstocks and germplasm evaluation.
Conventionally-bred varieties haven’t been forgotten though. The hundreds of Gen 2 mildew-resistant varieties produced in project CSA 1701-1.1 are currently being screened for their field performance and winemaking properties in a five-year project with DPI NSW, while Gen 1 mildew-resistant varieties are being evaluated by a number of industry partners. A pathway to adoption is also being mapped out for Gen 1 varieties from project CSA 1701-1.6 and the C-series rootstocks from project CSA 1701-1.3.