In last the two decades, the melon agribusiness in Brazil has expanded nine times, reaching a production that is estimated at 500,000 tons per year and is concentrated in the Northeast. Since 2007, melons have become the main national fruit in volume of exports, and in 2008 Brazil was the second top world exporter. Nearly all melon cultivars planted in the Northeast are imported, and hence there is demand for more adapted ones, as the cultivars available were generally developed in soil and clim

Status: Completed     Start date: Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2012

The general objective is to optimize the management of meleira and papaya ring spot by reducing the initial inoculum and dissemination, via monitoring and early identification of infected plants by taking aerial digital images.

Status: In progress     Start date: Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2020

Due to the importance of leguminous vegetables for human diets, the year of 2016 was declared by FAO the International Year of Pulses. Pulses are well appreciated in Brazil, and are consumed either fresh or in the form of processed products. Internal consumption has required frequent imports of such pulses; for peas and chickpeas alone, they represented US$ 14 million a year. The domestic market tends to expand due to the constant association of such foods with a series of attributes of high foo

Status: Completed     Start date: Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2016

In Brazil, milk production is practiced by more than one million farmers, mostly smallholders, who have in pastures and swards for green chop the most important sources for cattle feeding. Dairy agribusiness plays a significant role in food supply for the domestic market, in the generation of jobs and income for the population and in recent years has also become increasingly important in the Country’s export line. The intensification of animal production systems demands the use of forage species

Status: Completed     Start date: Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2016

The manual harvest of pepper fruits is difficult mostly due to the plants' low heights and the fruit's pungency, which causes irritation and burns the hands of harvesters. Such aspects partly explain the scarcity of labor for the pepper harvest. In addition, in the Brazilian and international market there are no jalapeño cultivars developed for mechanized harvesting. Therefore, this project aims at the development of new jalapeño cultivars adapted to mechanized harvest - with suitable plant arch ...

Status: Completed     Start date: Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2015

Status: Completed     Start date: Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2011

One of the largest livestock problems in Southern Brazil has been the scantiness of varieties of forage species more adapted to this region. In addition, due to global warming and the demand for increased productivity with reduced use of inputs, there is a need of studies on germplasm tolerance to abiotic stresses such as drought, and the evaluation of symbiotic organisms to promote biological nitrogen fixation in grasses. Thus, this project aimed to develop improved populations of some of the m

Status: Completed     Start date: Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2012

raditional breeding has generated significant genetic gain over time. However, this strategy falls short of yielding information on the biological processes involved. Additionally, there are great difficulties for the genetic improvement of characteristics which are measured solely in one gender and/or late in the life span of the animal. With the development of DNA chips it became possible maximizing genetic gain by reducing the generation interval and increasing the intensity of selection. The

Status: Completed     Start date: Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2010

This project proposes to develop selected pure lineages of maternal traits for high reproduction performance, weight gain, longevity and functional structure: selected pure lineages of terminal paternal traits for high performance, weight gain, food conversion and meat quality; and to define usage strategies to optimize genetic material (crossbreeding to form matrices and slaughter animals) with this material's cost reduction to producers. The strategy is to develop technical cooperation contrac

Status: Completed     Start date: Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2010

This is a broad research project on Barbados nuts, a crop with potential to become raw material for the production of biodiesel and aviation biokerosene. In spite of its high oil production, the plant has not been totally domesticated yet, that is, there are not different recommended cultivars or production systems for each region of the country yet. In this project, which is partially funded by Finep and CNPq, there are 22 participating research institutions in all Brazilian regions, 16 of whic

Status: Completed     Start date: Sun Aug 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2010