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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Corvallis, Oregon » Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #420553
Research Project: Improved Fruit, Grape and Wine Products through Precision Agriculture and Quality Component Evaluation

Location: Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit

Title: Impact of grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 genetic variants and emerging viruses on wine grape quality in the Pacific Northwest: Year 1

Author
item KARASEV, ALEXANDER - University Of Idaho
item Lee, Jungmin

Submitted to: Northwest Center for Small Fruit Research Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/18/2025
Publication Date: 11/20/2025
Citation: Karasev, A.V., Lee, J. Impact of grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 genetic variants and emerging viruses on wine grape quality in the Pacific Northwest: Year 1. Proceedings of Northwest Center for Small Fruit Research. 2024.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Many viruses infect grapevines in the Pacific Northwest, often in mixed infections, and represented by multiple genetic variants. For instance, GLRaV-3 (grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3) is well known to exist as a complex of genetic variants or strains separated into at least eleven phylogroups based on the genome sequences. The effects of these viruses and their genetic variants on wine grape berry yield and quality may be different and we propose to address this hypothesis. Virus populations present in the vineyards are differentially detected using RT-PCR and High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS) in paired sets of infected plants exhibiting symptoms of grapevine leafroll disease (GLD) or asymptomatic, in a newly planted vineyard in Idaho. RNA was extracted from those symptomatic field samples and subjected to RT-PCR using strain-specific primers, or, for HTS, depleted of ribosomal RNAs, and, after generating a library of cDNAs, submitted to the HTS technology. Individual plants in the same vineyard infected with different viruses and their genetic variants were identified during the first year and permanently tagged for berry quality studies. We collected berries in year 2, and will collect them again in year 3, to determine yield, and also subsample of berries will be analyzed for anthocyanins (color compounds), proanthocyanidins (color and texture compounds), sugars (sweetness), and organic acids (tartness) in year 3 (after both growing seasons’ samples are collected). This will allow us to compare the effects of individual genetic variants of GLRaV-3 on the yield and quality of berries.