{"id":128470,"date":"2020-10-08T16:16:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T02:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=128470"},"modified":"2020-10-08T16:16:04","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T02:16:04","slug":"uh-helps-avocado-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/10\/08\/uh-helps-avocado-production\/","title":{"rendered":"Holy guacamole! UH<\/abbr> researchers to help national avocado production"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"avocados<\/p>\n

Avocado production worldwide continues to boom, with 6.4 metric tons produced in 2018 alone, according to recent statistics. That\u2019s a lot of guacamole but as more countries enter the market, the global share from U.S.<\/abbr> growers has dropped from 57% to 27% in just 10 years.<\/p>\n

The University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources<\/a> (CTAHR<\/abbr>) will be part of an effort to reverse that trend and improve the nation\u2019s avocado production, competitiveness and sustainability. The U.S.<\/abbr> Department of Agriculture (USDA<\/abbr>)-National Institute of Food and Agriculture has awarded $68 million in new “Specialty Crop Research Initiative”<\/a> (SCRI<\/abbr>) grants to 23 recipients.<\/p>\n

One of these projects, a $4.4 million “Reducing Avocado Losses to Major Challenges by Improving Resistance Selection and Disease Management Using Next Generation Technologies”<\/a> grant, includes CTAHR<\/abbr> Associate Researcher Miaoying Tian<\/strong> of the Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences<\/a>, and Assistant Extension Agent Sharon Motomura-Wages<\/strong> of the Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Led by a team from the University of California-Riverside, Tian and Motomura-Wages will characterize pathogen populations, identify disease-resistant germplasm from Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> collections, and evaluate the performance in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> of elite rootstocks selected by the California Rootstock Breeding Program. Tian and Motomura-Wages also will introduce effective fungicides, rapid in-field diagnostics, and advanced management strategies to local avocado producers.<\/p>\n

“We are so excited to receive this support and be a part of this project that will enhance Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s avocado industry,” said Tian.<\/p>\n

Added Motomura-Wages, “This grant would not be possible without the support of our stakeholders and their valued input. I would like to thank our producers for working together with CTAHR<\/abbr> to pursue critical funding opportunities and devoting their time to serve as advisors on projects they believe will benefit Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>‘s avocado industry.”<\/p>\n

SCRI<\/abbr> supports specialty crop industries by addressing problems in production, distribution, processing and consumer markets.<\/p>\n

View the grant summary here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"avocado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miaoying Tian and Sharon Motomura-Wages will characterize pathogen populations and identify disease-resistant germplasm from Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> collections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[222,212,359,432,9],"class_list":["post-128470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-agriculture","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-plant-and-environmental-protection-sciences","tag-tropical-plant-and-soil-sciences","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128470"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128477,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128470\/revisions\/128477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}