Citriculture and other fruit trees
This Department, includes five research teams, focusing
on current problems of the citriculture and fruticulture in the
Autonomy of Valencia. The research covers the most important aspects
of production through studies on rootstocks, varieties, cultural
practices, physiology and mechanization.
- Plant material
- This team studies the subjects related to varieties
and rootstocks, intending to increase their range, mostly through
the selection of spontaneous mutations and directed hybridations.
It is a main goal to extend the current varietal status with cultivars
of high quality, and to select new, highly productive rootstocks,
that decrease the tree size.
- Practices of culture
- Research work on nutrition and fertilization
is carried out to set up more efficient practices and to improve
both the conventional methods and the fertirrigation. Similarly,
themes related to fruit quality are approached with the purpose
of improving its size and avoiding occurrence of some physiological
rind disorders.
- Physiology
- The major objective of this research team is
the study of the nutritional, hormonal and environmental factors
that regulate and control vegetative growth and fruiting. The
relationship and role of carbohydrates, hormones, dwarfing factors
and environmental conditions on the vegetative growth and fruit
set processes are investigated.
- Agricultural Engineering and Mechanization
- Research on equipment improvement to reduce the
use of plant protection products and herbicides is currently conducted.
New electronic sensors and artificial vision systems to evaluate
fruit quality are also studied, as well as the development of
techniques for grafting mechanization and weed control.
- Non-citrus fruit trees
- The aim of this research team is to obtain new
apricot varieties resistant to the sharka virus, the development
of detection methods of phytoplasmas that allowed the selection
of varieties and rootstocks and to create and characterize a fruit
tree collection as an alternative to the species mostly cultivated.
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Citrus plant material
- Breeding, typification and study of varieties
- Production and study of new rootstocks
- Selection of dwarfing and semi-dwarfing rootstocks
Cultural practices
- Nutrient dynamics and improvement of fertilization
techniques
- Improvement of fruit quality
- Replanting problems
Physiology
- Physiology of vegetative growth and fruiting
- Production of restricted growth plants
- Effects of salinity and water stress
Agricultural engineering and mechanization
- Reduction of the use of chemical product in agricultural
mechanization
- Development of electronic sensors for the control
of fruit and vegetable quality
- Artificial vision and agricultural robotics.
Non-citrus fuit trees
- Genetic breeding of apricot
- Clonal and health selection
- Alternative fruit trees (loquat, fig tree, Japanese
persimmon)
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