Inactivated Yeast Treatment for Thicker Grape Berry Skins
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current viticulture practices lack effective, environmentally friendly methods to enhance grape berry skin thickness, improve quality and resistance to fungal attacks, and ensure compliance with organic farming regulations, while existing products have limited efficacy and environmental impact.
Innovation Solution
A process using inactivated yeast or its derivatives, applied to vine plants during specific phenological phases, to induce skin thickening and enhance grape quality by releasing a free amino acids fraction through low-temperature lysis, which is absorbed by the plants, improving phenolic and aromatic ripening and resistance to fungal diseases.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If chemical fertilizers and phytosanitary products are used to improve grape quality and protect against fungal attacks, then the resistance and quality of grapes are improved, but environmental pollution and health risks increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses yeast cell walls as an intermediary substance that mediates between the vine plant and the fungal pathogens. The cell walls contain beta-glucans and mannoproteins that stimulate the plant's natural defense mechanisms and directly inhibit fungal growth, replacing harmful chemical fungicides with a biodegradable natural product.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of protection mechanism from chemical inhibition to biological stimulation. By applying yeast cell wall extracts, the plant's own defense parameters are enhanced, producing phytoalexins and reinforcing cell walls, thereby achieving protection through parameter transformation rather than direct chemical confrontation.
2Reliability
If yeast cell walls are applied as protection for vine plants, then resistance to fungal attacks is improved, but the skin thickness of grape berries is not enhanced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the yeast cell wall treatment multi-functional by demonstrating that it simultaneously provides both protective functions (fungal resistance through beta-glucan stimulation) and quality enhancement functions (skin thickening through mannoprotein-mediated cell wall reinforcement). A single treatment achieves multiple objectives that previously required separate interventions.
3Manufacturing precision
If inactivated yeast is used to thicken grape skin and improve quality, then phenolic and aromatic ripening is enhanced, but the complexity of the treatment process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and utilizes only the essential protective and quality-enhancing components (beta-glucans and mannoproteins) from yeast cell walls, applying them in a simplified formulation. This extraction approach isolates the active principles needed for skin thickening and phenolic ripening while eliminating unnecessary complexity from the treatment process.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The process effectively thickens grape berry skins, enhances grape quality, and increases resistance to fungal attacks, while being environmentally friendly and suitable for organic viticulture, with minimal environmental impact.
Implementation Method 1
a lysis pressure greater than 1000 bar, to subject the active yeast to the lysis pressure with consequent breakage of the cell structure of the active yeast and release of a free amino acids fraction from the cytosol
Implementation Method 2
The distribution step provides for absorption of the free amino acids fraction extracted from the cytosol of the yeast by the vine plants
Data Source
Figure 1A~1E
Figure 2A~2B
Figure 3A~3D
AI summary
Process for inducing thickening of the skin of grape berries in a vine cultivation, which involves inserting an active yeast for winemaking use with a water residue of at least 40% into a pressurization chamber, inside which a fluid is forced at a lysis pressure greater than 1000 bar to subject the active yeast to said lysis pressure with consequent breakage of the molecular structure of the yeast and obtaining an inactivated yeast or derivative thereof containing a free amino acids fraction extracted from the cytosol of the same yeast. The depressurization of the pressurization chamber then takes place and the inactivated yeast or derivative thereof is extracted from the pressurization chamber itself. Furthermore, the method involves dissolving the inactivated yeast or derivative thereof in a solvent in order to obtain a treatment solution, distributing the treatment solution on at least one vine plant of the vine cultivation and allowing the vine plant to absorb the free amino acids fraction extracted from the cytosol.