Research

As part of the Green Deal, agriculture faces the challenge of climate neutrality by reducing emissions and sequestering carbon in soils. Within the EU Soil Strategy ecosystem functions of healthy soils contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation should be achieved. However, currently there are hardly any realistic implementation strategies for these goals within crop production. As a new approach, the EU “Mission Soil Health” defines lighthouse farms as innovation drivers for achieving the climate and soil goals of the Green Deal. In the project SoilPioneers 2050, a national network of lighthouse farms is being set up at 60 locations, covering the most important soil and climate types as well as farming types in Austria. Modern scientific instruments are established on-farm to specifically monitor the soil functions of climate protection, nutrient efficiency, erosion protection and climate change adaptation. The potential for optimizing soil health through regenerative and agroecological practices compared to current agricultural state-of-the art systems, particularly with regard to efficient carbon, nitrogen and water cycles, is recorded through comprehensive soil indicator assessment. Based on the measured indicators, a soil quality model is developed that quantifies the management advance achieved for the individual soil functions and supports the farmers in further management optimization. A new platform will be used to process satellite data for soil organic matter balancing and assessment of crop resilience to heat/drought stress. By integrating crop-based remote sensing data into the soil quality model, the soil function assessment is improved and linked to progress made in climate change adaptation of crop production within the lighthouse farm network. Based on the improvements recorded in soil organic matter formation, nutrient and water efficiency as well as crop resilience achieved by the lighthouse farms, new simulation models will be used to develop improved estimates of climate and soil protection potentials through management innovation in arable farming within the framework of the Green Deal goals and future climate scenarios. By integrating innovative agricultural practice and research in a lighthouse farmer network, the project offers practical management solutions for the national implementation of the Green Deal goals, thereby also providing an important Europe-wide exemple for future-oriented climate action in agriculture.

Susceptibility of grape berries to stressors such as drought or heat changes according to the stress intensity and duration, but also depending on the berry developmental status at stress occurrence. For example, grapes in the herbaceous phase are more susceptible to drought stress than berries in the ripening stage. Drought and heat stress, which are predicted to increase in frequency and magnitude due to climate change, share a common effect in increasing the production of cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) in plant cells. While ROS are produced basally as signaling molecules, and plants have adapted mechanisms to detoxify them, stressful conditions increase their production. Given the economic importance of Vitis vinifera for the wine industry in Austria (and worldwide), it is important to understand how ROS metabolism interacts with other metabolic pathways active at the different stages of berry development, and therefore the effects of the timing of ROS-inducing stress factors. The inability to detoxify ROS may cause changes in berry metabolism and development that affect harvest quality, such as by increasing lipid oxidation, membrane damage, and subsequent cell death, the latter of which can cause symptoms such as berry shriveling in extreme cases. The project will explore the different strategies that grape berries could adopt to counteract an increase in ROS molecules produced in response to stressors, including the boost of the antioxidant pool (or de novo biosynthesis of antioxidant molecules) and the modification in the expression of ROS scavenging enzymes. The ROS scavenging capacity of developing grape tissue will be quantified by enzyme activity assays and gene expression analysis. Damage in berries caused by ROS will be quantified following drought and heat imposition in terms of the extent of lipid oxidation, cell death and changes in berry composition.

The MoFAB project is submitted within the framework of the R&D infrastructure funding - 3rd call of the FFG: At the University and Research Center Tulln, a Phenomobile (field vehicle for the recording of plant characteristics) is procured, equipped with a customized 3D fusion sensor consisting of laser scanner with spectral, respectively thermal camera, and prepared for field measurements. The fusion sensor will be calibrated and validated using a grapevine pot experiment on networked field scales, handheld sensors, and destructive measurements, and used in drought stress experiments under a mobile greenhouse and in field trials. The fusion data will be used, with algorithms, to develop data pipelines for new crop traits. A combine with integrated phenotyping equipment (weighing system, NIRS) will be procured, and used to reference traits determined with the Phenomobile. A particular focus is the development of absolute and comparable measurements of leaf nitrogen content and stomatal conductance, useful traits for developing feedback loops for digitizing agricultural nitrogen and water management and selection in breeding.