A natural organic coating to control and minimize late frost damages on the wine shoots

Current climate changes are leading to an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme events with a strong impact on agriculture. Late frosts are one of the main calamities for fruit trees and are a major cause of loss and reduction of productivity worldwide. With regard to the wine sector, the late frosts lead to the destruction of thousands of hectares of vineyards, with economic losses occurring all over the world. Given the importance of the wine sector in the world, more and more efforts are being made to identify methods, alternative to those already known (active or passive defensive methods), capable of creating a low-cost protection and effective for vines, as well as reducing energy consumption. The present study aims to propose an innovative technique to solve the problems related to late frost on vineyards and limit its damages as much as possible. The result of researches has been the identification of an insulating material able to cover the vine shoots during late frosts and thus prevent their freezing: the cotton candy has proved to be an excellent thermal insulator, extremely light, easy to produce, cheap and completely biodegradable in a few hours. An experimental apparatus consists of a climatic chamber and an electrical wire simulating a vine branch and the cotton candy. Several tests were conducted with different amounts of cotton candy in order to identify an optimum balance between the costs of producing the insulating material and the reduction of energy consumption.