Root2Fruit Part 2

Friday Apr 8th, 2011 77 Views Fruit Grower Report

Root2Fruit Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Rootstocks are the heart and soul of any orchard and without continual research to find better rootstocks an orchard will soon cease to be productive. Gennaro Fazio, Apple Rootstock Breeder and Geneticist with Cornell University says their program called Root2Fruit hopes to bring together fruit industry players to help ramp up research.

FAZIO: We have canvassed the industry as far as priorities that they want to see met. At the IFTA we had one of those turning point sessions where it’s basically a polling system and we got some really clear directions on what kind of research the industry wants us to focus on.

Fazio says they are looking for the right group of people to make this happen.

FAZIO: Right now we’re in the process of finding the best expertise possible within the ranks of the scientists and researchers and extension people across the United States and coalescing an advisory group from the industry that will oversee this effort.

They will be submitting a proposal to the Specialty Crop Research Initiative of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

FAZIO: The deadline for the submission of the proposal is in the last part of January so we have a few months to prepare and organize the different objectives of the proposal.

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