Articles
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN WORLD FRUIT PRODUCTION
Forces to initiate such change are many fold:
Production techniques developed in the past assure ample fruit supply.
International marketing of fruit is expanding rapidly
Scientists specialize and increasingly rely on information developed by others.
New biological sciences, especially molecular biology, are increasing prominently in fruit research.
Taxpayers more and more expect producers to finance their own research needs.
These changes profoundly affect how fruit research is conducted today and how it will be conducted in the future.
By the turn of the century we can expect that fruit research institutions will be fewer, the scientific mix in them will be different and research will be financed differently.
Not only the effective forces of research will be less, but at the same time, the number and complexity of research requiring problems will increase.
This will accentuate the impact of change.
Trend in research capacity From the 1960s to about 1985 research developed: (1) production methodology to improve profitability, (2) harvesting and storage technology that preserves the maximum quality for the consumer, and (3) pest protection that is generally believed to produce safe and sound fruit.
Since about 1985 environmental concerns have intensified, methods of sustainable agriculture are favoured and organic or semi-organic production is required to produce fruit perceived to be safe and nutritious by the public.
To respond to these demands new techniques had to be developed, and developed rapidly, without any loss in productivity, quality or appearance of the fruit.
This transition is requiring a high level of ingenuity and efficiency from fruit crop researchers.
While the researchable problems seem to increase, the fruit research groups in the United States and world wide are decreasing.
In fruit research, the Agricultural Research Service of the USDA has only 7 comprehensive fruit research groups and 4 additional small groups remained, covering the entire U.S. Among the 50 State Experimental Stations only 9 could be called a considerable force in fruit research.
Rebuilding research groups or starting a special line of investigation seems nearly impossible because of the lack of funds.
In the most advanced countries, scientist or technician wages, and maintenance of laboratories, greenhouses and orchards are all very high and requiring an overall output per researcher in excess of $200,000 (U.S.) per year.
Thus, maintaining a relatively small group of 5 researchers is a million dollar proposition.
Naturally, public funds can be stretched only so far and as a result, fruit research capacity slowly decreases.
Change in research scientists The type of scientists who conduct research is also in the process of changing.
In 1903 sixteen American horticulturists decided to form a society to promote horticultural science.
This group named the new society "Society for Horticultural Science" with emphasis on the plants themselves.
The term "science", intended to be a singular noun, was proper for designating the association of a group of people who shared the investigative interest in an identifiable although not homogenous group of plants.
The term was right for 80 years, but during the last 10 years horticultural "science" evolved into a pluralistic group of sciences, encompassing not only traditional horticultural science, but also molecular genetics, biochemistry, biophysics, tissue culture, hormone physiology, and various basic aspects of plant pathology or entomology just to mention a few.
Investigators practising these sciences still use the same group of plants,