Research Update


Drought tolerant rootstock happy (left) and drought tolerant rootstock potted (below)/


PHOTOS COURTESY UBC-OKANAGAN


Getting to the root of drought tolerance


Research at UBCO aimed at developing grapevines that perform well in dry conditions. By Scott Trudeau


W


ork to produce a drought- tolerant rootstock could eventually lead to improved


sustainability and application of different vineyardmanagement practices. Susan J.Murch, Associate Professor


and CanadaResearch Chair in the chemistry department at theUniversity of British Columbia-Okanagan, has been testing to find rootstocks that can growunder low-water conditions. Murch noted that grapes typically are


grown on disease-resistant and cold- hearty rootstocks and regardless of what varietals are being used they’re grafted onto the same type of root. “The root has the interactionwith the


soil, so the roots and the shoots are two different plants and that’s true of all grapevines everywhere,” saidMurch, noting entire plant collections are grown specifically for their roots.


26 While some roots are bred for


weather conditions inNorthern Europe, the SouthOkanagan has different conditions,which include a growing season that is quite short and sandy soil that doesn’t hold a great deal ofwater. “Thewater that is sprayed ontomost


of theOkanagan soil goes into the sand and then runs away,” she said. Because thewater run-off also


depletes the soil of nutrients, growers strugglewith keeping nutrients in the soil and usingwatermore efficiently. Murch said the university beganwith


themost commonly used rootstocks. These are grown in tissue cultures to ensure no viruses or diseases are present in them. “We startedwith those cultures and


we used a variety of techniques to isolate individual cells and stimulate those cells to growand then screen each individual one to see howit responded to restrictedwater,” she explained.”In doing thatwe created a collection of about 220 different individual rootstock vines fromindividual cells of the roots.” Studies followed to examine the


natural variability occurring between the cells in the roots and variables that were introduced to the roots.Water restrictionswere then introduced at several different phases, such as in sand and greenhouse conditions.


British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Spring 2014 “We eventually found roots thatwill


growfor a couple ofweekswith no water at all,” saidMurch. “So ifwe can do that, thatwouldmean growers could use less irrigation and you could potentially need lesswater to growtheir crop—so that’s the overall goal.” Murch said tests are still taking place


in order to determinewhy the specific varietals createdmightwithstandwater restrictions.Upcoming goalswill be to conduct field testing experiments including one test that involves growing themoutside over awinter to test their cold-heartiness. “We have to go back andmake sure


they can stillwithstandwinter and disease and other normal challenges that the rootswould face,” she said. “We’re in the process of field testing themand understanding howwe can


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