The grapevine is an important crop grown worldwide and nowadays the preference by seedless grapes is increasing in the brazilian market. The cultivar 'Romana' (A 1105) is showing great potential as a new seedless table grape for the growing region of Jundiaí, São Paulo, Brazil. However, the bunch quality has been influenced by rain during the harvest period, leading to incidence of berry cracking and rot. Aiming to verify the possibility of growing this table grape under plastic cover conditions a field trial was done in a vineyard grown in Jundiaí, aiming to quantify microclimatic parameters inside and outside of the protected environment; the bunch quality at harvest and the period of cold storage of bunchs (post-harvest time). The average values of solar radiation transmissivity were decreasing as follow: effect of the plastic cover only> effect of the grapevine training system only> and combined effect of the plastic cover and training system. Analising the bunch quality parameters at harvest, significantly lower values of bunch rot were found for the plastic cover treatment in relation to the open sky grapevines. Also, the bunch weight was higher in the plastic cover treatment. The defects like deep and superficial damage were lower for the bunch harvested in the plastic cover treatment. So, it was concluded that the use of plastic cover for the 'Romana' (A 1105) table grape led to a better bunch quality, mainly due to the reduction of rot bunch incidence.
Vitis sp.; plastic cover; transmissivity; leaf wetness duration; bunch rot; post-harvest
