GRAPE CULTIVAR TYPING IN THE FIELD USING LAMP

A recent scientific publication demonstrates the power of LAMP to answer important questions in Agritech industries. The DNAiTECH Gen 2 instrument was used by Dr Javier Quinteiro and wine researchers in Spain to verify cultivars of Albariño, a grape variety whose cultivation dates back to Roman times, from which global award-winning white wines are made. There is a story here, that in 1989 the CSIRO inadvertently imported into Australia cultivars of Savagnin Blanc (not sauvignon blanc) instead of Albariño. Twenty years later after hectares of cultivation, Australian growers were informed that DNA profiling showed that what they believed they were producing was not actually Albariño but Savagnin Blanc.

Profiling cultivars by PCR is costly, time-consuming and requires a well-equipped molecular biology laboratory and trained personnel. Isothermal methods such as LAMP are powerful and easy to use alternatives to PCR. Dr Quinteiro and the team in Spain identified a chloroplast SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism), and then cunningly developed LAMP primers that could distinguish Albariño cultivars from non-Albariño varieties (https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/2117139) And this test could be performed in the field.

The possibilities are diverse, allowing the authentication analysis of the valuable Albariño cultivar wherever it is required, in-situ, from a minute sample of plant tissue, cheaply and quickly. This is a tool that some Australian winemakers would have liked to have had years ago.