Mission:
The mission of the Fruit and Tree-Nut Research Unit is to meet agriculture sector needs (both small and large farms) for a) stone fruit (peach nectarine, plum) scion and rootstock cultivars, and b) production and management strategies and tools to enable economic production and protection of pecan and stone fruit crops. Breeding efforts will produce: a) stone fruit scion cultivars satisfying a wide range of market niches with fruit possessing high quality and resistance to diseases (bacterial spot, brown rot, and scab), and b) rootstocks conferring enhanced tree longevity (tolerance to oak root rot, nematodes, and peach tree short life). Protection efforts will produce: a) management strategies and tools for economic control of primary arthropod pests of stone fruits (catfacing insects, borers, plum curculio, and scale) and pecan (weevils, aphids, mites, shuckworm, casebearers, stinkbugs, and mirids), and b) management strategies and tools for economic control of primary disease pests of stone fruits (scab, brown rot, root rots, nematodes, bacterial spot) and pecan (pecan scab and shuck decline). Production related research efforts will produce cultural strategies and tools to mitigate irregular bearing of pecan and increase production efficiency.