Completed projects
Carlos' program focuses on reducing losses, improving fruit quality and safety, increasing consumption, and expanding markets. This includes working with fresh fruits, fresh-cut fruits, nuts and vegetables to identify and investigate arising issues, then creating and introducing new technologies as pilot programs with expansion, if needed. (Four previous projects are highlighted below.)
Peach Chilling Injury (CI) or Internal Breakdown (IB)
Peach sensory defects are triggered by temperature abuse during storage, retail, and consumer handling. In the short term, I screened cultivars based on market life potential and developed a practical ripening and ‘preconditioning’ protocol to reduce chilling injury and to extend postharvest life. Working with stone fruit packers’ promotion teams, we connected with 73% of all North American retail and wholesale receivers, an effort that increased sales by 30%. To provide long-term solutions, we developed a molecular genetics approach, with a group of 35 scientists from 14 U.S. universities and agencies. As a result, today there are new commercial peach cultivars from multiple breeding programs that are less susceptible to chilling injury because of our worldwide team efforts.
Prepared Stone Fruit and Kiwifruit Protocols
Created practical stone fruit and kiwifruit handling, ripening, and ‘preconditioning’ (box premium) protocols to prepare fruit for consumers, resulting in a ~30% increase in stone fruit sales.
Established New Fig Cultivars
Established ‘Sierra’ and both a green and a black ‘Panachee’ as fresh figs for the California industry. These cultivars are becoming the core of our new fresh fig industry (35% of total). As a result, I received the California Fig Institute ‘Industry Distinguished Service & Achievement’ Award for my work helping the California fig industry in 2020.
Introduced Early Market Cherry Cultivars
Developed cherry maturity standards and postharvest handling protocols to open export markets for low-chill cherry cultivars, including ‘Tulare’, ‘Brooks’ and ‘Coral Champagne’, which are UC Davis cultivars with great flavor and an early market window. When first introduced, their lighter skin color at optimum maturity did not meet the ‘Bing’ USDA maturity color standard for shipment to high-value early export markets. We demonstrated to the USDA that these cultivars had high consumer acceptance and better long-distance shipping performance when picked at their optimum maturity, and the Federal standards were changed. The low-chill cultivars ‘Coral Champagne’, ‘Brooks’ and ‘Tulare’ are now becoming the dominant California grown cultivars, comprising at least 40% of the acreage and contributing ~$112 million annually to the gross cherry industry revenue.