Silicon application effect on berry quality of Touriga Franca variety in the Douro Demarcated Region
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abstract
The warmer and drier climate will challenge Portuguese viticulture negatively impacting the
economy, particularly for renowned winemaking regions such as the Douro Demarcated Region. In the
context of climate change, the production of grapes and the sustainability of the vineyard are vulnerable
to the effects of high radiation, heat and drought during the summer period. These conditions affect
negatively the vines at the phenological, physiological and biochemical levels. The shortage of water
resources makes irrigation practically unsustainable from an economic and environmental point of view,
being crucial to implement alternative and eco-friendly measures for a better balance between vines
and the environment, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. In this work, we applied a
suspension of silicon (2.5 %) in a commercial vineyard located in the Douro Superior sub-region (Santa
Comba da Vilariça) to understand its effects on increasing tolerance to water stress in Touriga-Franca
cv. grapevines. The experiments were divided into three treatments: i) positive control - with a deficit
irrigation (25% of ETc), ii) negative control - without irrigation and iii) silicon - SiO2, applied in pré
veraison. After the statistical analysis, the results showed that at veraison silicon treated plants
presented fruits with higher significant values of total phenols, pH and brix°, when compared with both
irrigated and non-irrigated ones. At maturation, the silicon treated plants showed fruits with higher
anthocyanins, alcohol, pH and brix° content than the negative control. Accordingly, we can suggest that
silicon foliar treatment could be an alternative to deficit irrigation strategies to mitigate water stress
without negative impact on berry quality.
This work was supported by
National Funds by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for
Science and Technology, under the project
UIDB/04033/2020, and by the project I&D&I
AgriFood XXI (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000041),
cofunded by the European Regional Development
Fund (FEDER) through NORTE 2020 programme
(2014/2020). We also want to thank the
TECNIFERTI enterprise for their support to provide
us the silicon.
