Enhancing Vineyard Resilience to Abiotic Stress: Roles of Biochar, Zeolite, Hydrogels, and Biostimulants

The field of viticulture faces mounting challenges from abiotic stresses exacerbated by climate change, such as drought, heat extremes, and soil degradation, all of which pose significant threats to vine health and grape quality. Recent years have seen the emergence and growing interest in innovative solutions, including biochar, zeolite, hydrogels, and biostimulants, as tools to enhance vineyard resilience. These materials act through distinct yet potentially complementary pathways—increasing soil moisture retention, improving nutrient dynamics, and stabilizing the root zone, as well as directly affecting key physiological processes when administered at the canopy level. Notably, they can modulate stomatal conductance, photosynthesis, osmotic balance, and plant stress signaling, thus supporting the vine’s adaptive mechanisms. Despite these advances, current understanding remains fragmented across soil and plant disciplines, and ongoing debate persists around optimal integration and potential limitations of these products. There is a pressing need for syntheses that bridge soil- and canopy-based approaches to clarify their interactive roles in vineyard adaptation to environmental stressors, and to identify knowledge gaps and future research priorities.This Research Topic aims to present an integrated and critical overview of how biochar, zeolite, hydrogels, and biostimulants can be strategically applied to enhance vineyard resilience to abiotic stresses. Specific objectives include elucidating mechanisms of action at both soil and canopy levels, evaluating their impacts on vine physiology and fruit quality, and determining effective combinations and management practices for diverse viticultural environments. By inviting contributions across disciplines, the Research Topic seeks to answer key questions regarding the modulating effects of these tools on water relations, nutrient uptake, photosynthetic regulation, and stress resilience, while also considering their interactions with irrigation strategies and vineyard management. Hypotheses will be tested through field trials, controlled experiments, physiological and molecular analyses, as well as modeling approaches, to advance the evidence base for sustainable viticulture under climatic pressure.The scope of this Research Topic covers both the breadth and boundaries of recent advances in the use of biochar, zeolite, hydrogels, and biostimulants to improve vineyard performance under abiotic stress. While focusing on applications relevant to viticulture, the collection excludes purely descriptive studies lacking mechanistic or molecular insights into stress adaptation.To gather further insights in this fast-evolving area, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Influence on nutrient uptake, stomatal regulation, photosynthesis, and stress signaling pathways• Soil-based and canopy-level applications of biochar, zeolite, hydrogels, and biostimulants• Effects on soil physical and chemical properties and vine water relations• Integration with irrigation regimes and vineyard management practices• Molecular and genetic analyses, including transcriptomics and gene expression studies on stress adaptation• Field and controlled-environment experiments, including modeling and multi-scale integrative approachesWe accept original research articles, short communications, and review papers that provide mechanistic, physiological, biochemical, or molecular interpretations of vineyard responses to these tools. Manuscripts focused solely on product performance without scientific context are discouraged. Topic editors: Eleonora Cataldo, Eleonora Nistor, Sergio Puccioni Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79262/enhancing-vineyard-resilience-to-abiotic-stress-roles-of-biochar-zeolite-hydrogels-and-biostimulants