Application of a completely organic and bio-degradable sugar-based insulating coating to vine shoots, to prevent late frost damages

An innovative method against late frosts in vineyard has been developed at CIRIAF, University of Perugia. It consists of an organic coating made by cotton candy and straw to prevent the vine shoots freezing due to late frosts. This technique has already tested at lab-scale with very encouraging results. This paper aims to experiment the effect of the organic coating applied on young shoots of grapevine during artificially controlled frost events. A vine shoot covered by the organic coating was positioned in the climatic chamber and a thermocouple was rolled up to the vine shoot to control its temperature. Also, a vine shoot rolled up to the thermocouple and without organic coating was positioned inside the climatic chamber, used as a reference case. Results show that the temperature gap, gained with the adoption of the insulating layer was approximately in the range 0.2 – 3.2 °C, but the organic coating was not enough to maintain temperature above the ice-point able to prevent the vine shoot freezing in lab. Even thought, the experimental application of the present technique allowed to detect some crucial challenges which need to be solved before to test this technology in real situations.