Carlos Rodriguez Lopez*
*University of Kentucky, Department of Horticulture, Plant and Soil Sciences Building, Lexington, KY 40563 (cmro267@uky.edu)

Both biotic and abiotic conditions significantly affect grapevine phenotype, ultimately affecting fruit quality. Little is known about how grapevine responds to the local environment through epigenetic modifications and its effect on gene expression in field-grown plants. To understand how biotic and abiotic factors interact to affect vine phenotype, we characterized the soil bacteriome and leaf and berry methylomes and transcriptomes of 198 Shiraz vines cultivated across 22 vineyards, covering six sub-regions of the Barossa wine zone in Australia. Our results indicate that while soil bacterial communities were heavily influenced by soil conditions, vine gene methylation and expression were driven by locality.

Funding Support: Australian Genome Research Facility