The appropriate design of such products requires this kind of data. Our analysis shows that no one risk management tool fits all growers. Some risk-related patterns may be observed broadly in certain segments of farms. However, those patterns change when smaller subcategories of crop producers are analyzed because risks and the way growers manage them depend on many complex factors. One implication is that insurance products that are designed and targeted for individual crops may miss the whole farm interactions. In reality, an insurance product for a specific crop would work differently for different growers depending on their characteristics outside the specific crop. It is also vital to better understand the risk management tools that growers currently use when designing public policy to help farmers manage risk. In many cases, public policy for risk management can be effectively designed to accommodate and complement rather than substitute for or conflict with the risk tools that growers already value and use. Overall, the results of this survey suggest that one must proceed with caution when attempting to develop government-sponsored risk management programs. Programs may fail to meet objectives and may have serious unintended consequences unless the full set of opportunities and constraints facing farmers is well understood and the differences across farms are incorporated in the program design. This study shows the complexity of risk related costs and revenues associated with the fruit, nut, vegetable, blueberry grow bag and ornamental horticulture industries in California. The data summarized in this report also can be useful for further research.
These data, together with information on grower costs and returns, can help analysts better understand variations among horticultural crop industries in California and elsewhere. Researchers are also pursuing more detailed analyses of the data. For example, these data are ideal for measuring patterns of diversification and, in some cases, vertical integrations and for examining the multivariate patterns of these with alternative measures of farm size. Assessing other, more detailed relationships among the variables is also on the research agenda. This report does not attempt to disentangle the various causal relationships among the data. Such research is on the horizon. Finally, this survey provides a one-time cross-section on many important variables. Periodic re-surveys would allow researchers to track the path of adjustment and allow assessment of industry dynamics with rich, repeated cross-sectional information.Bunch grapes , notably European , are considered among the major fruit crops worldwide, producing roughly 70–80 million tons each year . Cultivars of V. vinifera L. are used for wine, juice, and table grape production. Grape berries are classified as non-climacteric fruits, exhibiting a double-sigmoid developmental pattern with two rapid growth phases: the berry formation and the ripening phase , separated by an intermediate lag phase called the green plateau . The exponential increase in berry size characterizes both growth stages , but not the lag one . During phases and , also known as immature stages, organic acids, mainly tartrate and malate, accumulate leading to induction of acidity levels . At the end of the lag phase, a step-change point takes place known as veraison, where acidity starts to decline while sugars, mostly glucose and fructose, as well as anthocyanins in colored varieties, increase.
Of particular interest are phenolic compounds, which are major and ubiquitous plant secondary metabolites derived from the shikimate/phenylpropanoid and polyketide pathways, with three utmost categories: proanthocyanidins , also known as condensed tannins, the gallo- and ellagitannins , and the phlorotannins . Such diversity of polyphenols, with more than 8000 structural variants, bestows them a wide range of biological functions ranging from growth, development, and protection inside the plant to, to some extent, human-related issues . In grapevines, the accumulation pattern of phenolic compounds, along with the aforementioned berry attributes, distinguishes each of the berry phases throughout berry development . Indeed, berry quality and sensory characteristics are notably defined by its polyphenol content . Remarkably, astringency is among the hardest sensory traits to depict and interpret as many intricate processes underpinning its perception . For instance, a sensory characterisation of the astringency of 11 varietals of Italian red wine revealed that neither total phenols nor PAs can predict how all astringency subtleties will be perceived . It is worth noting that the amounts, compositions, and proportions of polyphenols in a given species may vary widely depending on several factors, such as genotypic variations, developmental stages, and environmental circumstances . Scarlet Royal is a mid-season ripening table grape variety, producing seedless, red-skinned, oval-shaped, firm, and moderate to large berries with a sweet to neutral flavor . In the San Joaquin Valley, California, it typically ripens in mid to late August, filling the harvest window between Flame Seedless and Crimson Seedless, and has thus become a very popular red table grape variety in California. However, an undesirable astringent taste has been observed occasionally in some cases.
In fact, the economic value of grapevines depends substantially on the environmental conditions, including climate, soil, cultural practices, cultivar, and root stock. Hence, the term “terroir” is used in viticulture to describe the effect of such an interactive ecosystem on grapevine and wine quality . The current study aimed to understand the underlying mechanism of astringency development in Scarlet Royal berries at two contrasting vineyards . The first location produces well-colored, non-astringent berries; however, the second site yields astringent taste, poorly colored berries . The data showed a large variation in berry astringency within the same vineyard and from year to year. The data illustrated that the divergence in berry astringency stemmed from alterations in its polyphenol composition , most notably tannins. Additionally, the ripening stage was the most distinguishing platform for such variation between both vineyards. We were able to determine the tannins’ threshold level that causes the Scarlet Royal astringency taste to be ~ 400 mg/L. Given the changes in the levels of polyphenols during berry ripening, the question was raised: what is the mechanism governing the distinctive tannins accumulation pattern between V7-berries and V9-berries, and hence astringency diversity? To answer this question, RNA-seq data generated at one ripening time point was associated to the changes in polyphenolic levels using a systems biology approach, WGCNA . The module-trait association analysis positively correlated the key flavonoid/PAs biosynthetic genes with the accumulation of tannins, catechin, and quercetin glycosides exclusively in V9-berries. The modulation of the berry’s transcriptomic profile is concomitant with its polyphenols’ composition, which finally disturbs berry quality, including astringency levels.Five-year-old V. vinifera cv. Scarlet Royal grafted on Freedom rootstock was chosen for its berry astringency diversity at two commercial vineyards located in Delano, San Joaquin Valley, California, USA. Vineyards were located at a close distance of 10 km, and the local weather conditions during the two seasons were collected from the Delano CIMIS weather station . Both vineyards were planted at the spacing of 2.44 and 3.66 m in an open gable trellis supporting system with East-West row orientation. Vines were pruned in a Quadrilateral cordon training with 7–8 spurs left on each cordon during the winter pruning. In addition, general UC guidelines practices were applied in both vineyard. Random forty vines from different four rows from each vineyard were used in this study. Starting from veraison and until the end of the season, during two consecutive years . During the first year, sampling dates were July 8th , August 1st , August 10th , September 9th , September 15th , and October 19th ; and for the second year, sampling dates were: July 15th , August 10th , August 25th , September 10th , September 29th , and October 21st . Sampling dates varied from the first to the second year due to the vineyard’s accessibility. At each sampling point, two sets of fifty berries were collected periodically. The first set was used to measure the berry weight, and then these berries were macerated in an electric blender, filtered through a paper towel, blueberry grow bag size and an aliquot of juice was used to determine soluble solids , pH, and titratable acidity . The TA and pH were determined by titrating a 40 mL aliquot of juice with 0.1 N NaOH to a pH of 8.2 using an automatic titrator Excellence T5 . Another random 50 berries from each replicate were collected for color, tannins, and phenolic compounds and sent immediately in a cooler to EST laboratories.
At harvest, which was during the month of September, an extra set of samples was collected and promptly frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at −80°C for subsequent analysis, including RNA extraction and gene expression studies. Harvest time was determined by the growers, and the marketable clusters were picked based on the color, and yield was determined from the three harvest dates.At bloom, fifty leaves from each replicate were collected, resulting in a total of 200 leaves from each vineyard, for nutrient analysis. The leaf positioned at the front of the cluster was specifically selected, and the petiole was immediately separated from the blade. The petioles were transported to the laboratory, where they were triple-washed with distilled water to remove any impurities before being sent to a private laboratory for nutrient analysis. In the winter, soil samples were collected at a depth of 30 cm and at a distance of 30 cm from the vine. These samples were transported immediately to the laboratory for analysis. The nutrient content was determined using the methods described in US Salinity Laboratory Staff .The taste panel evaluation of Scarlet Royal table grapes was conducted with the participation of twelve nonprofessional panelists. Astringent taste perception was assessed using a scale ranging from one, representing an extremely low level of astringency, to seven, indicating an extremely high level of astringency. The taste evaluation was performed on 24 clusters from each vineyard. Phenolic compounds analysis. Total phenolic analysis was performed on 250 grams of whole berries by ETS laboratory using a reversed-phase HPLC method adapted from Price et al. .Total RNA was isolated from whole berry samples following the protocol described by Boss et al. . To remove any residual DNA, RNase-free RQI treatment was performed according to the manufacturer’s instructions , and the samples were further purified using the RNeasy mini kit . For RNA-seq analysis, a total of 8 RNA-seq libraries were generated, comprising four biological replicates from each of the two vineyards . The libraries were constructed as previously described using the NEBNext Ultra II RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina . Subsequently, these libraries were pooled in equal amounts and subjected to paired-end 150-base sequencing on two lanes of the NovaSeq 6000 platform at the Novogene Co., Ltd .Illumina sequencing of the multiplexed RNA-seq libraries resulted in 8 FASTQ files containing sequences, and the dataprocessing followed the methods described in our previous work . In summary, the quality of reads was assessed using FASTQ before and after trimming with Trimmomatic v0.39 . Subsequently, the trimmed reads were quantified using Salmon in non-alignment based mode to estimate transcript abundance . Co-expression network modules were constructed using the variance stabilizing transformation values and the R package WGCNA . Before analyzing the data, lowly expressed genes among all sample types were removed by DESeq2, and the remaining non-lowly expressed genes of the 8 samples were used in module construction. The co-expression modules were obtained using the default settings, except that the soft threshold power was set to 9, TOMType was set to signed, minModuleSize was set to 30, mergeCutHeight was set to 0.25, and scale-free topology fit index was set to 0.8 . A module eigengene value, which summarizes the expression profile of a given module as the first principal component, was calculated and used to evaluate the association of modules with berry biochemical characteristics of V7-berries and V9-berries at the fifth sampling time . The resultant final WGCNA matrix had 42 modules with 17,553 genes. The module membership and gene significance values were calculated, subsequently the intramodular hub genes were identified .Scarlet Royal table grape is one of the major red varieties in California. Despite the premium fruit quality of the variety, in some cases, an undesirable taste was observed under certain unknown circumstances. To gain comprehensive insights into the development of the occasional berry astringency of Scarlet Royal and understand the underlying mechanism of this phenomenon, berries were investigated at two contrasting vineyards , both following the same commercial cultural practices.