Influence of viral infection on the quality of grapes at harvest

Abstract

A major concern in the grape breeding programs is crepresented by the impact of the viral infections in the vineyards performance and the importance of producing virus-free material, measure controlled and regulated also by the governmental institutions. The aim of this study was to identify the presence of the most common and damaging viruses, active in Romanian vineyards, and to evaluate the effect of the viral infection on the selected grapevine plant performance. A total of 21 grapevines belonging to two Romanian cultivars were randomly selected from a plantation located in the Valea Calugareasca viticultural center, in order to be verified for the presence of ArMV, GLRaV-1+3 and GFkV viruses, by using Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. From the total of 21 vines, four vines (FN 3, FN 4, FN 8, FN 14) were identified as having present one virus and five grapevine (FN 1, FN 5, NA 1, NA 3, NA 4) plants showed, in different combination, infection with two viruses. The presence of a single virus respectively, mixed virus combinations, had a visible impact on the results for both types of the analyzed parameters, technological and physicochemical. The current study confirmed the influence of the viral infection presence and highlighted the importance of the virus-free material on the grapevine plant performance.

Keywords

• grapevine
• virus
• das-elisa
• technological parameters
• physicochemical parameters