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More competitive SMEs in the EU wine industry with Vitisens

Vitisens to detect FD phytoplasma in less than one hour and with lowcost per samples (10€) EU wine producers and vine plant nurseries to benefit with the results of the Vitisens EU Project.

VITISENS proposes a diagnostic kit and a portable handheld device answering to the need of wine producers and vine plant nurseries SMEs to perform rapid in-field test to determine the presence of Flavescence Doree phytoplasma in grapevine by means of an innovative integration of the steps required for its detection in order to control its spread and reduce its dramatic economic impact on the vine grower sector. Vitisens is the result of a European Project funded by the European Commission for 28 months and a total investment of €1,096,879, under the “Research for the Benefit of the SMEs” at the Seventh Frammework Programme (FP7). The participants of this initiative were a multidisciplinary group from different EU countries and industries, based in France, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom. The research centers provided the SME participants, owners of Vitisens, with all technological skills required, industrial objectives, geographical representation, synergistic business interests and non-competitive positions. The project has been divided into research, demonstration, dissemination, exploitation and management activities by means of Work packages. After 28 months of research VITISENS has achieved most of the objectives foreseen, sampling material needed and protocol based on seasonality effect and a sample treatment protocol optimized with a DNA extraction method using new laboratories methods (LAMP) adapted for in field conditions.(VITISENS Diagnostic kit). Moreover the portable handheld device and special instrumentation for detection have been designed and constructed (VITISENS Reader). Flavescence dorée is responsible for a destructive and dangerous grapevine disease that severely damages plant productivity and has an important economic impact. Already widespread in Italy and France, where it is catalogued as catastrophic, FD incidence is rising rapidly in other European countries, showing a clear epidemic pattern that threatens to engulf European winegrowers and vine nursery SMEs despite mandatory national and EU control measures. The current detection method used by most of the end-users is visual inspection and only a small percentage uses analytical methods, indeed the current analytical methods are expensive and time consuming (up to €100 per sample and 3 weeks). VITISENS offers the possibility of detecting FD phytoplasma in less than one hour and with lower costs per samples (10€).

Countries

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom