Underutilized fruit crops in the Mediterranean region
1995
Llacer, G. (Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias, Moncada (Spain)) | Aksoy, U. (University of Ege, Bornova-Izmir (Turkey). Faculty of Agriculture. Department of Horticulture) | Mars, M. (Institut des Regions Arides, Medenine (Tunisia))
Over recent years, partly due to the crisis situation that the agricultural sector is undergoing, and because of the need to seek new alternatives, a movement of interest has arisen in all Mediterranean countries towards a better knowledge of the so-called underutilized fruit crops: figs (Ficus carica), loquats (Eriobotrya japinica), Japanese persimmons (Diospyros kaki), pomogranates (Punica granatum) and barbary figs (Opuntia figus-indica). This growing interest resulted in the establishment of a Working Group on "Underutilized Fruit Crops" supported by CIHEAM whose first meeting was organized at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza (Spain), on 9-10 November 1994. The main objectives of the meeting were to know the present status and future prospects of the five species mentioned in the introduction, to try to identify the major problems in the culture and commercialization of these five species and to look for ways to solve the identified problems. The contributions of twenty experts coming from twelve Mediterranean countries have been compiled in this issue. The conclusions of the meeting were that although each species has some particular problems, the major limiting factors for all of them are the heterogeneity of plant material; lack of selection and varietal identification, the sensitivity to post-harvest handling and transportation and the genetic erosion of plant materials.
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