WSU's Tree Fruit Research Vision Part 2

WSU's Tree Fruit Research Vision Part 2

WSU’s Tree Fruit Research Vision Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Washington State University has a good track record when it comes to providing important research to the fruit industry. Dan Bernardo Dean of WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences says they have excellent partnerships with the various parts of the tree fruit industry and that is big part of getting the right research done.

BERNARDO: You know most of the solutions that we need to discover occur at the nexus of these disciplines. Everything does not occur within entomology but it occurs between entomology and horticulture and economics, etc. And we need to be operating in an interdisciplinary manner.

Bernardo says that while the research is important the big pay off is the end use.

BERNARDO: This program has to get research in the hands of those who use it. So it really is something that has to span from basic research all the way to extension and we have to have all of these links in the chain covered and covered well.

All the pieces must fit together or Bernardo says there really isn’t a good research program.

BERNARDO: If you fail to have a robust program in any of these areas the whole thing breaks down. If you don’t have a breeding program the genomics has no way of reaching the field. If you don’t have an active robust post harvest program it really doesn’t matter too much about what you are doing up above that in what I call the research supply chain.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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