TRENDS OF THE RESEARCH WORK IN VEGETABLE CROPS AND POTATOES IN BULGARIA

The Republic of Bulgaria is among the first ten countries in the world in vegetable production per capita of the population.
The annual vegetable consumption per head is 200–215 kg including 56% for fresh consumption.
Bulgaria has ancient traditions in their growing.
It is well-known with great diversity of vegetable species and varieties.
Our country is a secondary forming center for some of them.
Many of local varieties have been distributed in the past by the Bulgarian gardeners in many European countries – Hungary, Austria, Romania, Serbia, Russia, etc.
Part of them was used as gene-carriers in the breeding program for creation of new varieties in these countries.
The optimal climatic conditions in our country are prerequisite for cultivation of almost all vegetable species.
This fact determines the prompt development of the scientific investigations in the filed of vegetable production.
Already in the remote 1932 Professor Hristo Daskalov and his research team carried out profound theoretical investigations on heterosis and released the first F1 tomato hybrids the same year.
Due to its excellent quality, these hybrids remained in production for more than 30 years.
Several years later heterosis breeding was applied successfully to eggplant, pepper and cucumber.
Today, 80 years later researchers in the vegetable production sphere should decide more complicated problems.
Greater attention is paid to the chemical and technological properties, biochemical characters and content of biologically active substances with antioxidant effect without the productivity of the new variety to be underestimated.
The climatic changes, problem concerning the population feeding exert an influence on the trends of the experimental work.
The food quality and safety and the human health are problems of the first importance on a world scale.
They are both a leading motive in the scientific investigations in the vegetable production and a significant factor for research topics today.
The priority investigations of the vegetable science comprise a number of topics as follows:

• Enhancement of vegetable quality by improving biological value (increasing the components with antioxidant effect), sensory characteristics, pest and disease resistance, high temperature and drought tolerance by the use of conventional and biotechnological breeding methods.
  
• Evaluation and exploitation of various vegetable germplasm, comprising local and introduced accessions, breeding lines and cultivars.
  
• Improvement of integrating systems for pest control in vegetables.
  
• Investigations on bio-products as alternative solutions to improve nutrient regime, plant growth and plant quality.
  
• The effect of environment factors on quality and quantity of the yield in protected and open field.

IV Balkan Symposium on Vegetables and Potatoes

ST. Masheva, M. Mihov

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.830.4