Many viticulturists, winegrowers and scientists are increasingly concerned about the potential consequences of high exposure and vulnerability of the winemaking sector to changing climates and more frequent and intense weather extremes. One of the fundamentals of winegrowing is that grapevines are highly sensitive to local terroirs, particularly to the prevailing soil and atmospheric conditions. This sector is indeed strongly controlled by atmospheric variability, in both the short-term (Meteorology) and long-term (Climatology). Modelling is a very useful tool for monitoring and predicting grapevine development (e.g. on daily, weekly, or seasonal timespans). For this purpose, weather/climate-crop model chains are commonly used for predicting the potential impacts on grapevines under different weather or climate conditions.
Montenegro, however, still lacks systematic and science-based knowledge on monitoring climate change effects in viticulture, as well as sophisticated tools for crop modelling. The available EU know-how in both climate and grapevine modelling can, thus, be comprehensively applied, adjusted and validated for Montenegro’s viticultural conditions. The MONTEVITIS aims to boost Montenegro’s S&T potential, as a Widening country in the Western Balkans, gearing up its research, influence, innovation, and educational practices in the areas of viticulture and oenology and integrating climate change.
The main objective of MONTEVITIS is to strengthen, homogenize and increase research and collaboration capacities and performance of Univerzitet Donja Gorica (UDG) and its involved faculties and labs in specific topics of climate change mitigation and adaptation in viticulture, both in Montenegro and across the European prospect. Three defined operational topics constitute the pertinent needs of an integrated and operational European approach to tackling climate change in viticulture, now to be applied in Montenegro via UDG. Firstly, the project will set up, integrate, and validate the following topics: 1) use and adaptation of existing analytical and modelling tools for assessing the impacts of climate change at regional levels, 2) understanding these impacts on the course of physiological processes in the vine, yield, ripening, and quality of grapes and wines of different varieties. MONTEVITIS will then 3) define precision viticulture technologies and management of different use case scenarios in vineyards.
