The market request for organic vegetables has grown recently for their positive impact on healthy diets. Consumers have progressively shown preferences for various combinations of color, size, and shape of pepper fruits. Facilitating communication, collaboration, and participation in the selection of cultivars with superior performance, flavor, texture, and culinary attributes can represent a key tool in breeding for nutritional and culinary traits. The current research started from the premise that organic production involves achieving adequate nutritional and culinary quality of pepper fruits. The study was conducted to investigate traits related culinary quality of pepper genotypes, especially in the ripening phase of fruits, to select the best resources with a high antioxidant content for breeding programs. The biological material represented by nine genotypes of sweet pepper was cultivated in the open fields during 2019 and 2020 at the experimental stations of the Vegetable Research Development Station of Bacau and of Iasi University of Life Sciences. Agricultural practices and intensive breeding focused on yield and stress tolerance have indirectly led to a reduction in the nutrition and flavor of the produce. Complex approaches, including screening of consumer preferences, phenotyping, and use of modern genomics and analytical chemistry tools in breeding, together with participatory farmer-breeder-chef-consumer collaborations, can represent a strategy to facilitate the development of the next generation of crops aimed to meet the growing demands of safe and nutritionally vegetables featured by culinary standards as good flavor, color, and texture.

In response to urgent demand to raise awareness of the nutritional and health benefits of tomato consumption and to advocate for healthy diets through increased sustainable production and consumption of fruits and vegetables, this study is intended to promote a healthy and balanced lifestyle, sharing the best practices of production and consumption. The aim of this research was to compare the effects of the growing system (field vs. plastic tunnel) and of genotype characteristics for organic improved tomato genotypes. The research was carried out in the 2019 and 2020 years on eight improved tomato genotypes. The results showed that the ascorbic acid content presented higher values for organic tomatoes cultivated in the field for all genotypes studied, with an upper limit of 18.57 mg·100 g⁻¹ FW. In contrast, the content in β-carotene and lycopene showed higher values for genotypes grown under plastic tunnel conditions. Significant statistical differences were noticed concerning the mean values of all genotypes according to cultivation conditions (field vs. plastic tunnel) for most parameters excepting total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TA), maturity index (MI) and flavor index (FI). This highlights the major importance of the selection of some genotypes of tomatoes that respond positively to the organic cultivation system in terms of the presence of the antioxidants compounds (vitamin C, lycopene, and carotene) in representative quantities. Genotype 3 is highlighted by the highest content in carotene (7.4 mg·100 g⁻¹ F.W.) and lycopene (8.4 mg·100 g⁻¹ F.W.) and genotype 5 by the highest content in vitamin C (16.8 mg·100 g⁻¹ F.W.). The results of the study suggest that by applying appropriate techniques for growing organic tomatoes in the plastic tunnel system, the antioxidant substrate can be optimized compared to the results obtained for the field system.

Soil erosion is triggered by rainfall through the detachment of soil particles and their transport downslope, playing a key role in soil erosion models. Together with the vegetation cover, rainfall is a temporal dynamic factor, inducing corresponding time variations of erosion rates. Under current climate change, rainfall is also changing its characteristics and our study aimed to reveal whether these changes will significantly affect rainfall erosivity in Romania, and implicitly the soil erosion. To achieve this purpose, we developed a statistical non-parametric model for predicting rainfall erosivity on the basis on the modified Fournier index and applied it to future precipitation evolution scenarios. The precipitation data were extracted from the CHESLA database for the Romanian territory for two climate change contrasting scenarios (RCP 4.5 and 8.5). Average predictions from five selected climate models were used in order to minimize prediction uncertainty. The results show that rainfall erosivity is likely to increase, at least during the 2041–2060 period, especially in the south-western, western and eastern part of the country, which may cause a corresponding increase in soil erosion rates, with an average of 1–2 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. During the 2061–2080 period, rainfall erosivity is likely to decrease in central and eastern Romania.

Climate change modifies the base climate of the wine regions and, with it, the structure of their traditional types of wine production, imposing measures to adapt, mitigate, or capitalize on the newly emerging conditions. In order to assess the impact of climate change and establish the appropriate adaptation measures for each wine region, regional and local studies are needed, which allow knowledge of their current climate profile. The aim of this research was to identify the changes that appeared as an effect of climate change in the initial climate profile and the initial structure of the traditional types of wine production of Bordeaux (France), Loire Valley (France), Rhine-Main-Nahe (Germany), La Rioja (Spain) and Cotnari (Romania) wine regions, and also in climate suitability for wine production of the Sussex area from the UK. The study uses multi-year averages for the 1951–1990 and 1991–2010 time periods of reference bioclimatic indices for viticulture, namely the Average Temperature of the Growing Season (AvGST), the Huglin Index (HI), and the Oenoclimatic Aptitude Index (IAOe). The results of this research reveal significant changes in climate suitability for wine production of the studied wine regions: in the Bordeaux wine region, climate change led to the appearance of conditions for the cultivation of the Mediterranean climate varieties Grenache, Syrah, and Carignan; in the cool climate wine regions Rhine-Main-Nahe and Cotnari, traditional producers of white wines, the climate has also become suitable for the cultivation of Pinot noir and Cabernet franc varieties, and implicitly for the production of red wines; in all studied wine regions, the classes of climate suitability for viticulture shifted higher in altitude, as is the case of the La Rioja region, where, in the recent period, the grapevine can be grown up to 922.9 m asl, higher by 206.2 m compared to the 1951–1990 time period; in the low area of each wine region, one or even two new climate suitability classes for wine grape growing appeared. The shifts revealed by this research generate solid conclusions regarding the effect of climatic change on the viticultural potential of geographical areas, namely: in the context of climate change, the altitude of the wine region has a major influence on the evolution of the local viticulture potential; a higher topography allows a better adaptation of the wine region to climate change; low-elevation wine regions are more vulnerable to climate changes, especially the further south they are located; as an effect of climate change, conditions appear in the wine regions for the cultivation of new grapevine varieties and the production of new types of wine.

Aims : To characterize the viticultural potential and delineate homogeneous viticultural zones in the Huşi wine growing region (Romania) in order to provide necessary information for viticultural zoning.Methods and results: The methodology is based on a Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis of 15 ecological parameters, representative of the topography, climate and soils in temperate continental climate vineyards. Three homogeneous viticultural zones were identified : one suitable for quality white wines and red table wines ; one suitable for quality white wines ; and one suitable for white table wines, sparkling wines and wines for distillates.Conclusion: In order to characterize the viticultural potential, it is necessary to assess the suitability of all ecological factors that influence the quality of the grapes. Omitting one ecological factor may lead to erroneous results in suitability assessment. Climate suitability determines altitudinal differentiation of the viticultural potential, while topographical and pedological suitability determines a horizontal differentiation.Significance and impact of the study: This study provides the necessary information for viticultural zoning in the Huşi wine growing region in Romania. The methodology allows to evaluate viticultural potential and to delineate homogeneous viticultural zones in wine growing regions with a temperate continental climate.