Grant: Engage Grants Program

The grape and wine industry has been a fast growing economic sector globally and in Canada. The overalleconomic impact of the grape/wine industry in Canada has reached $3.3 billion annually in 2014. Just inOntario alone, grapes are grown on over 15,000 acres by 500 growers, producing >80,000 metric tons of grapesworth $100 million in farm-gate sales. Unfortunately, viruses and the diseases they cause have emergedrecently in Canada, posing widespread and severe threat to the productivity and sustainability of the grape and wine industry. With supports provided by the Engage program, we have developed the world most effectivetechnologies for the isolation of quality nucleic acids from grapevine and numerous other woody fruit crops.Using these quality nucleic acids, we subsequently established fast, highly sensitive and reliable molecularbased methods (PCR, RT-PCR and next generation sequencing) for the diagnosis of multiple major virusesfrom grapevines. In this project, we will take these detection and identification systems we have developed inrecent years to the real test: to study the distribution of 12 major viruses in commercial vineyards exhibitingvarious degrees of diseases and productivity via PCR-based tests and high-throughput sequencing. We alsointend to find correlation between vineyard performance (yield, quality and production lifespan) and diseasestatus (type of viruses and their titre). Findings from this project will not only benefit the grape/wine industry inOntario but also other grape production regions of Canada. Thus, this research will generate significant andfar-reaching impact on the well-being of the agriculture and agri-food sector and tourism industry in Canada.