Postharvest handling

Barbara Blanco-Ulate, Asst. Professor in Plant Sciences, received a Hellman Fellowship for the research “Epigenomics of Tomato Fruit Susceptibility to Fungal Disease.” The grants are awarded to early-career faculty who show academic distinction and potential. It provides extra financial support for their early research.

Plant breeders and food safety experts held a conference at UC Davis to discuss issues relevant to food safety, including microbial contamination control in produce throughout the food chain (seeds, field production, pre- and postharvest, packaging, distribution, marketing). Conference chair was Professor Maeli Melotto, Plant Sciences, UC Davis.

This video summarizes the production techniques, equipment, and production goals that John and Justin Diener, and Scott Park employ for their organic processing tomato fields. It details the efforts they use to take care of the soil at their farms.

Three people in Plant Sciences received Breakthrough Technology Awards for Plant Breeding research and programs. The competitive grants advance development of publicly available cultivars bred to improve the production efficiency, yield, sustainability, resilience, healthfulness, product quality, and value of U.S. agricultural plants while increasing farmer profitability and exports.

Processing tomato production in California is a major success story with wide-ranging advances in production technologies that have been achieved through innovation in genetics, management, and mechanization during the past century.

Project determines if ethyl formate, used as a fumigant for postharvest pest control, affects the sensory quality of citrus fruit.

Sweet and juicy strawberries that are easy to handle, high-yielding, and disease-resistant. An international team of scientists led by UC Davis and Michigan State University has taken a step that might allow breeders to grow strawberries that meet those needs.

Professor Florence Zakharov is the new director of the Postharvest Technology Center. She has been involved with the center since joining the faculty in 2006. She believes in the ‘cross-fertilization’ between industry and academia.

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