Mango fruit production and quality

Mango ranks fifth in terms of worldwide fruit production.Like other tropical fruit species, mango cropping is hampered by problems affecting yield and quality: alternation of flowering and production between years, variable fruit quality and ripeness, pest and disease control. The lack of knowledge on mango is a barrier to effective mango crop management. The (...)

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Diagnostic methods to improve tropical tree crop productivity

In humid tropical areas, the expansion of oil palm, natural rubber, coffee and cocoa cropping to meet growing world demand raises environmental issues. It is thus essential to enhance the productivity of established plantations by targeting higher sustainable crop yields using environment-friendly cropping practices.

Researchers of the UPR Performance

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Modelling the functioning of a tropical agrosystem:an application to banana plantations

Modification of overall agrosystem functioning is required for cropping system (CS) innovation. A system approach to relationships between plants, pests and the environment is needed to understand and describe the functioning of these new systems, which are more complex than systems in which inputs are massively used. This system-based representation of agrosystem (...)

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Virtual Fruit–a model to gain insight into fruit quality

Fruit quality is the result of many highly interacting physiological processes that are controlled by many genes whose intensity varies with the environment and cropping practices. The genetic, environmental and cropping factors controlling the intensity of the processes and their interactions have to be understood before being able to manage this quality, which (...)

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Ecological intensification of cocoa- or coffee-based agroforestry systems

Agroforestry stands in which cocoa and coffee trees are grown alongside many different woody, forest or fruit species are complex systems with high environmental and socioeconomic value. These sustainable systems require few chemical inputs and, in addition to coffee and cocoa, they provide farmers with a range of self-consumed or marketed fruits, timber and (...)

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The root system: in situ knowledge enables optimization of crop functioning

Root systems have many functions, e.g. supplying plants with water and nutrients, maintaining the soil structure and its organic status, and reducing erosion risks. The rhizosphere is also a unique ecological niche with intense soil biological activity. These features are especially important under tropical poor fragile soil conditions. The conventional measuring (...)

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Development of tools for analyzing grapevine canopy functioning

The crop canopy is a site of mass and energy exchanges between the plant and atmosphere. There is high microclimatic heterogeneity in this complex environment. Many studies have shown that the grapevine canopy structure affects the yield via its effects on light interception, photosynthesis and transpiration. It also affects grape ripening and the harvested grape (...)

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DMC-an ecological intensification engineering tool

For ecological intensification, research must provide relevant solutions to two major issues, i.e. need to produce more even though farmland is decreasing, and to produce better in order to preserve the environment. The intensification of natural processes by direct seeding mulch-based cropping systems (DMC) can restore the chemical, physical and biological fertility (...)

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Much higher production with agroforestry systems in temperate regions

A 100 ha agroforestry plot can yield as much as a standard 140 ha crop field. In agroforestry systems, trees and crops are grown together in agricultural plots. Current experiments, supplemented by computer simulations, have confirmed the high productivity potential of temperate agroforestry systems. Mixed poplar–cereal crop plots produce 40% more than plots (...)

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Changing relationships between sugarcane growers and industrial stakeholders to improve sugarcane quality

Agroindustrial subsectors represent a significant income source for farmers in both developed and developing countries. Farmers and agroindustrial processing units interact in supply areas to manage physical flows of agricultural raw materials, information flows and incentive instruments implemented to regulate and pay for deliveries in quantitative and qualitative (...)

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Plant architecture and in-plant water supply and transfer

Water supply has a marked impact on plant functioning in terms of resource acquisition (water/mineral uptake and photosynthesis), assimilate allocation to different organs and therefore control of organ growth.

A plant water uptake and transfer model was developed. This model is based on plant architecture descriptions combined with characterization of

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This example was not published on the print file in July 2010.

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Research units and teams involved in "Ensuring top quality, high quantity production"