Climate experts report that June 2025 was the hottest June ever recorded globally. Many crops have therefore begun to face stress conditions even before the official start of summer, and the months of July and August are expected to be equally critical from an eco-physiological perspective.
In this scenario, grapevines (often grown without irrigation, especially in Northern Italy) require adequate support to manage summer stress. A specific CE plant biostimulant such as Eranthis can represent a valuable tool to achieve the expected productive and qualitative standards.
Thanks to the proven priming effect of Eranthis (the enhanced ability of plants to tolerate stress periods) vines treated before heat waves and drought period demonstrate an improved capacity to optimize limited water reserves and excessive light radiation.
This effect has been observed in several field trials where Eranthis led to an increase in berry weight, attributed to better water management, as well as a reduced incidence of leaf and bunch sunburns, mainly due to optimized light radiation through an increased photosynthetic capacity of the plant’s green organs.
In fact, Eranthis promotes a “physiological barrier” against excess radiation by enhancing the plant’s ability to absorb and utilize light for photosynthesis, thereby reducing the fraction of energy dissipated as heat responsible for sunburn damage.
At harvest, vines treated with Eranthis showed mitigated yield losses and improvements in parameters typically penalized during climatically challenging years, such as phenolic profile (color and structure), acidity (especially important for white grape varieties), and aromatic profile.
The recommended dosage is 2 L/ha, with an optimal number of 4 applications. Eranthis can be tank-mixed with commonly used plant protection products, including copper-based fungicides.
To maximize the priming effect of Eranthis, treatments should be applied a few days in advance of severe stress periods or, at the very least, avoided during the hottest hours of the day to allow adequate assimilation of the product’s bioactive components.
