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Scientists reject GM for cold-resistant vine
By Carolyn Evans-Hammond, Decanter.com, 9/23/2003
Canadian scientists are close to identifying the gene that protects vines from extreme cold – and they're doing it without genetic modification.
'Within a year we will identify the genetic switch that activates a wild grape vine's defences against extremely low temperatures,' said Dr John Paroschy, research scientist at Château des Charmes Winery in Ontario, and the leading authority in Canada on genetic research on cold tolerant grapes. 'We have identified four or five of the genes involved and we know the switch is in one of them.'
Paroschy is convinced vinifera vines exist that can withstand minus 40 Celsius. At present, vinifera vines are killed or seriously damaged by temperatures lower than minus 30 degrees Celsius. He says the genes may have been dormant for up to 10,000 years, 'so turning them on may prove difficult.'
This research follows work in Canada which tried to create cold-tolerant vinifera grapes through genetic modification. In 1994, Paroschy along with Professor Bryan McKersie and Brenda Rojas at the University of Guelph in Ontario transferred genes from a wild cousin of broccoli to single vinifera cells, from which vines were grown to evaluate cold tolerance. The research was inconclusive and was abandoned last year.
Paroschy now reckons genetic modification (GM) is not the best way to identify cold-tolerant grapes. 'The nicest, truest, easiest means of doing so is identifying the vine's inherent gene,' he said.
Canada is at the forefront of research in this area. Once a viable cold-loving vinifera vine is identified and isolated, Canada's wine regions could expand beyond the confines of a few temperate regions largely in Ontario and British Columbia.
This development could also boost the survival rate of vines in a country where three out of 10 winters are cold enough to damage vines.