Vitis 48 (4), 167–173 (2009) Evaluation of aluminium tolerance in grapevine rootstocks

Aluminum (Al) toxicity is a major worldwide ag-ricultural problem. At low pH, Al speciates into the soluble and phyto-toxic form Al3+, inhibiting the root growth and affecting plant development. In Brazil, ag-riculture in acidic soils with elevated concentration of Al has significantly increased in the last decades. There-fore, in order to achieve efficient agriculture practices, the selection of plant cultivars with improved Al resist-ance has become crucial in this type of soils. In this work we have evaluated the Al resistance of six geno-types of grapevine rootstocks. The grapevine hardwood cuttings were grown in nutrient solution in the absence and presence of 250 and 500 μM Al at pH 4.2. The phe-notypic indexes of relative root growth, fresh and dry root weight, root area, hematoxylin staining profile