EPAMIG promotes online events about Minas Gerais wine growing and PANC vegetable cultivation

The Agricultural Research Company of Minas Gerais (EPAMIG) is promoting a special program this October to mark the National Technology Week (SNCT), which in 2022 brings the theme “Bicentennial of Independence: 200 years of Science, Technology and Innovation in the Brazil". Two online events will take place next week.

On October 25th (Tuesday), the theme will be “Double Pruning: How EPAMIG research helped wine growing to develop in Minas Gerais, increasing productivity and earning awards for the State”. The event will have as guests the specialist in gastronomic research from Senac Minas, Vânia Maria Fonseca Pedrosa, and the historian from the Municipality of Andradas (MG), Ricardo Luiz de Souza. Mediation will be by researchers from EPAMIG's State Viticulture Research Program, Renata Vieira da Mota and Cláudia Rita de Souza. The broadcast will be live, starting at 14pm, on EPAMIG Official YouTube Channel.

On Thursday (27/10), also at 14pm and broadcast on the YouTube Channel, the live, presentation of the most recent edition of Informe Agropecuário magazine, whose theme is “PANC Vegetables: Roots and Rhizomes”. The meeting will be mediated by researcher Izabel Santos, one of the edition's technical editors.

Two chapters of the publication will be highlighted in the lectures “Food Security and PANC Vegetables”, a theme by Embrapa Agrobiology researcher, Mariella Camardelli Uzêda, and “Unconventional food plants: popularization versus gourmetization”, presented by the chef and director of LABPanc – Gastronomy and Culture, Michel Abras. Furthermore, the editor-in-chief of Informe Agropecuário, Vânia Lacerda, will talk about the history of the Magazine and the EPAMIG Bookstore, where publications can be consulted and purchased. Researcher Marinalva Woods Pedrosa, also technical editor, will address the creation of this edition and the importance of the theme.

Both events will have space for interaction with the public through answers to questions sent via chat. To participate, no prior registration is required.

Double Pruning of the Vine

The double pruning technique, adapted and disseminated by EPAMIG, consists of inverting the vine cycle by carrying out two annual prunings, which allows the grape maturation and harvest period to take place in winter, a period with less rainfall and high thermal amplitude (temperature difference between day and night). The practice began to be tested at the beginning of the 2000s, when the then EPAMIG researcher, Murillo de Albuquerque Regina, returned from his doctorate in France, where he assessed that the conditions necessary to produce healthy grapes suitable for obtaining fine wines , were quite similar to the characteristics of winter in the coffee growing region of Southern Minas.

The first wines obtained using the technique reached the market at the beginning of the last decade and soon gained space on the gastronomic circuit and won national and international awards. Currently, the practice, which was consolidated in the Brazilian Southeast, has expanded to regions that have similar climatic characteristics.

Restoring the planting and consumption of PANC Vegetables

Since 2008, EPAMIG has carried out research to identify and rescue the cultivation and consumption of Non-Conventional Food Plants (PANCs). These vegetables, which are part of the culinary tradition of different regions of Minas Gerais and Brazil, are quite nutritious, but over time they lost market space and were no longer consumed by part of the population.

The studies include species such as taioba, ora-pro-nóbis, sorrel, arrowroot, manguito, vinegarira, among others and cover different lines of research and actions, ranging from species maintenance, management and cultural treatments, to uses by the food industry, diversification production and assessment of the potential of these species to enrich food.