An overview of the recent approaches for terroir functional modelling, footprinting and zoning

Abstract

Abstract. Notions of terroir and their conceptualization through agri-environmental sciences have become popular in many parts of world. Originally developed for wine, terroir now encompasses many other crops including fruits, vegetables, cheese, olive oil, coffee, cacao and other crops, linking the uniqueness and quality of both beverages and foods to the environment where they are produced, giving the consumer a sense of place. Climate, geology, geomorphology, and soil are the main environmental factors which compose the terroir effect at different scales. Often considered immutable at the cultural scale, the natural components of terroir are actually a set of processes, which together create a delicate equilibrium and regulation of its effect on products in both space and time. Due to both a greater need to better understand regional to site variations in crop production and the growth in spatial analytic technologies, the study of terroir has shifted from a largely descriptive regional science to a more applied, technical research field. Furthermore, the explosion of spatial data availability and sensing technologies has made the within-field scale of study more valuable to the individual grower. The result has been greater adoption but also issues associated with both the spatial and temporal scales required for practical applications, as well as the relevant approaches for data synthesis. Moreover, as soil microbial communities are known to be of vital importance for terrestrial processes by driving the major soil geochemical cycles and supporting healthy plant growth, an intensive investigation of the microbial organization and their function is also required. Our objective is to present an overview of existing data and modelling approaches for terroir functional modelling, footprinting and zoning at local and regional scales. This review will focus on three main areas of recent terroir research: (1) quantifying the influences of terroir components on plant growth, fruit composition and quality, mostly examining climate-soil-water relationships and/or using new tools to unravel the biogeochemical cycles of both macro- and micronutrients, the functional diversity of terroirs and the chemical signature of products for authentification (the metagenomic approach and the regional fingerprinting); (2) terroir zoning at different scales: mapping terroirs and using remote and proxy sensing technologies to monitor soil quality and manage the crop system for a better food quality; and (3) terroir sustainability assessment and new preservation practices.

Climate change andterroir: The challenge of adapting geographical indications

“…Terroir pertains to location specific interactions among soil, moisture, sunlight, and other natural factors that impart particular qualities to a product. Although originally developed for French wine, using terroir to legally protect food and beverages from fraudulent claims is now applied to other specialty agricultural products such as coffee, tea, tequila, honey, olive oil, fruits, and cheese (Vaudour, Costantini, Jones, & Mocali, ). Climate change raises interesting questions as to how conceptions of terroir and the formalized rules and practices behind GI‐protected food and beverages can evolve in the face of climatological shifts.…”

“…Despite the substantial differences between PDOs and PGIs, terroir is sometimes used to refer to a PDO and can be confused with a PGI (Barham, ). In some cases however, one or more terroir units may be present in the designated area of the PDO and be included in the definition of the PDO (Vaudour et al, ).…”

“…These rainfall changes along with expected changes in temperature, solar radiation, and atmospheric CO 2 concentrations will likely have significant impacts on soil erosion rates (Nearing, Pruski, & O'Neal, ). Even in cases where annual rainfall is projected to decrease, system feedbacks related to decreased biomass production could lead to greater susceptibility to soil erosion (Vaudour et al, ).…”

Temporal stability of electrical conductivity in a sandy soil

“…Peralta et al (2013), Pedrera-Parrilla et al (2014), and Bonfante et al (2015) have also used EMI to establish management zones. The delineation of management zones within a given field is one of the most common uses of EMI data (Vaudour et al, 2015).…”

Vineyard Compost Supplemented with Trichoderma Harzianum T78 Improve Saline Soil Quality

“…The annual production of pruning residues is high. Vineyard compost is a valuable product for reducing erosion losses (Vaudour et al, ; Keesstra et al , ) and increasing soil fertility (Hombegowda et al ., ). Vineyard compost was obtained by composting cut vine stems with the indoor method.…”