Genomic selection at the service of grapevine breeding for diversification and deployment of disease resistant varieties with high oenological potentials – SelGenVit

In France, while grapes occupy only 3.7% of the agricultural used land, viticulture uses about 20% of the total amount Plant Protection Products (PPPs) targeting the two main biotrophic pathogens causing downy mildiou and powdery mildiou. This heavy use of PPPs has been a standard for decades, but is now expected to be reduced drastically because an extensive use of PPPs is not only expensive for growers but represents an important risk for the environment and human beings. Climate change is another important challenge wine growers have to face in the future. One of the current efficient ways to reduce PPP use is to create new varieties with durable resistance against the most important grape pathogens, associated with good agronomic and wine quality performances. Through the ResDur program, INRA has provided the demonstration that this concept is feasible and desirable by releasing the first four varieties with polygenic disease resistance. Although the ResDur program has substantially reduced the length of the breeding cycle, it still takes 15 years to create a new variety. To accelerate the creation of new disease resistant varieties adapted to climate change and regional conditions, we propose in this project to incorporate genomic and phenomic selection into the current breeding schemes as a "decision-help tool" for regional grape breeders to progressively make the breeding schemes more efficient. We propose the establishment of a well-chosen permanent calibration panel that will be genotyped and phenotyped to elaborate prediction accuracies. Our project, designed to enroll regional breeders in a tight long-term relationship, is expected to accelerate breeding cycles to diversify the disease resistant varieties for a wider deployment and therefore greatly contribute to the drastic reduction of PPP use while maintaining breeders' profits.