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"Biosensor based instrumentations to be used in vineyards and wineries for fast and sensitive detection of Botrytis cinerea ,grey rot, in grapes" (SAFEGRAPE)
Start date: Nov 1, 2009, End date: Nov 30, 2011 PROJECT  FINISHED 

"Botrytis cinerea is a fungus that affects wine grapes and is responsible for the grey rot infection, which can strongly alter the quality of grapes and derived wine, causing: browning, destruction of flavour compounds, decrease of foaming properties, fermentation stopping. Grey rot is the largest infection of grapes in vineyards all over the world and is a major problem both for wine growers and wine producers, being very rapid and resistant to fungicides. The derived economic impact is disastrous, accounting for the loss of 15-40% of harvests, overcoming 15 billions of Euro per year (25% of the potential world wine production turnover). Quality control is usually done visually or through lab based analysis which need several minutes and are highly complex and expensive. The SAFEGRAPE aims to develop a simple and cheap instrument for the wine industry, able to provide a quantitative and reliable evaluation of the presence of grey rot infection in grapes in a very short time. The instrument is based on a biosensor system and on an innovative analysis method, that allows a precise and very fast analysis procedure, i.e. in less than one minute, which is compatible with the quality control procedures applied to grapes before wine-making (measure of total acidity, sugar content). The main result expected from the project is the development of the biosensor system integrated in 2 instruments: 1. portable instrument for the measure in vineyard, to be used by winegrowers in the field or after grape-harvest; 2. on-line instrument for quality control in wine production sites, to be integrated in the quality controls commonly applied (sugar and total acidity content). These instrumentations will allow to increase the wine quality and reduce the loss of harvest of about 10%, by a fast intervention in the field and is expected to have a market potential of several tens of millions of Euro for the SME proposers."
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