Environmental influences on long-term disease occurrence in viticulture: a holistic effect size-based analysis of vineyard, technology and soil domains

Markó, Gábor and Pásztor, László and Laborczi, Annamária and Horváthné Petróczy, Marietta and Kocsis, Ivett (2026) Environmental influences on long-term disease occurrence in viticulture: a holistic effect size-based analysis of vineyard, technology and soil domains. JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD RESEARCH, 28. No. 103006. ISSN 2666-1543

Preview

Text MarkoG2026JAFR_domain.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Viticulture is constantly influenced by various environmental factors that create a complex production context, affecting grapevine conditions, crop yield, and quality. We can classify these environmental factors into three main groups: vineyard, technology, and soil domains. These three domains cover the factors that most significantly determine outcomes in grape production. Production-related factors within coexisting domains could neutralise each other. Therefore, to clarify the potential roles of environmental factors in the long-term occurrence of the main grape pathogens (Botrytis cinerea: BC, Plasmopara viticola: PV, Erysiphe necator: EN), we examined the overall effect linking long-term disease occurrence to relevant environmental variables, assessed pathogen-specific differences, and identified shared environmental features affecting disease dynamics using an effect size-based framework with heterogeneity assessment adapted from meta-analytic approaches. We found that the overall effect size of the complex growing context is low, with substantial heterogeneity and pathogenspecific patterns. Environmental variables had the most complex effects on BC, whereas PV and EN were only partially influenced by the growing environment. Thus, their infection risk varied according to specific, similar features of the environmental factors (i.e., spatiotemporal scales). Specifically, among the pathogens, BC was modified by the vineyard and soil domains, whereas we could not detect a significant impact of these conditions on PV and EN. These results suggested that the infections of these two pathogens were highly dependent on climatic variables. Our study highlighted that different results can be obtained by examining variables within complex systems rather than testing them independently.

Actions (login required)

View Item