**6. Conclusions**

The studies summarized here have shown that at a given phytomer level, the development of the vegetative and reproductive organs of the microvine exhibits comparable kinetics to those of non-dwarf vines grown outdoor. Given its original biological properties (small size, continuous fructification, possibility of inferring temporal observations from spatial data), this model can be used in fundamental studies on vine response to abiotic constraints or on fruit physiology under wellcontrolled environments. Thus, the microvine has already been used as a model in several scientific experiments on the effect of temperature on the vegetative and reproductive development, on changes in gene expression in grapes, and their plasticity under high temperature. This model has also shown its potential to accelerate conventional and reverse genetic approaches, including the identification of genetic determinants of developmental traits stable under fluctuating thermal conditions or major loci controlling the composition of the grapes. Studies are underway to use this model to study the impact of physical factors (drought, CO2 concentration, temperature, etc.) on the development of the vine and the quality of the grapes but also to develop tools (markers of QTLs, pre-breeding lines pyramiding several agronomic traits of interest) for the selection of new varieties displaying original properties, i.e., traits of adaptation to climate changes.

### **Acknowledgements**

These studies were supported by fundings from the following agencies or institutions: National Research Agency—Genopole (DURAVITIS project ANR-2010-GENM-004-01), Montpellier SupAgro, the departments EA (Environment-Agronomy) and BAP (Plant Biology and Improvement) of INRA, the Poupelain

**21**

**Author details**

Anne Pellegrino1

France

France

provided the original work is properly cited.

Viticulture and Oenology, Nyon, Switzerland

, Charles Romieu<sup>2</sup>

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

, Markus Rienth3

1 LEPSE, Montpellier University, CIRAD, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro, Montpellier,

2 AGAP, Montpellier University, CIRAD, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro, Montpellier,

3 University of Sciences and Art Western Switzerland, Changins, College of

\*Address all correspondence to: laurent.torregrosa@supagro.fr

and Laurent Torregrosa<sup>2</sup>

\*

*The Microvine: A Versatile Plant Model to Boost Grapevine Studies in Physiology and Genetics*

Foundation, the European Eurasia 2 thesis mobility programs, EulaLink, and the Brazilian CNPq scientific cooperation program. Special thanks to Mark Thomas, Pat Corena, Don MacKenzy, and Ian Dry from CSIRO Agriculture (Adelaide) for mentoring and helping during some important steps of these experiments.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86166*

*The Microvine: A Versatile Plant Model to Boost Grapevine Studies in Physiology and Genetics DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86166*

Foundation, the European Eurasia 2 thesis mobility programs, EulaLink, and the Brazilian CNPq scientific cooperation program. Special thanks to Mark Thomas, Pat Corena, Don MacKenzy, and Ian Dry from CSIRO Agriculture (Adelaide) for mentoring and helping during some important steps of these experiments.
