Brief description of my research activities and main topics

 As a plant physiologist specializing in citrus and other fruit trees, my research focuses on plant growth, development, and responses to environmental stimuli, integrating horticultural, physiological, and molecular approaches.

Fruit taste quality in citrus is largely determined by the accumulation of sugars and citri acid. The dynamics of acid accumulation and its decline during fruit maturation have been a central focus of my laboratory for many years. More recently, our research has shifted toward understanding the regulation of juice sac initiation from the fruit endocarp tissue. Juice sacs are unique to citrus fruits and are absent in other fruit types, raising fundamental questions about the specific regulatory factors that govern their development and distinguish citrus from other berry-type fruits.

In parallel, my laboratory investigates the mechanisms underlying alternate bearing in citrus. By combining physiological, molecular, and genomic approaches, we have developed a model describing how fruit load is perceived and transmitted to the bud, thereby influencing its flowering potential. This model has been further validated in other fruit tree species, avocado and olive.

Another major research focus in my laboratory is fruit cracking, a severe physiological disorder that can cause significant yield losses in certain years. I am currently coordinating an EU-funded project aimed at developing high-throughput, real-time monitoring systems for fruit cracking in citrus, pomegranate, grape, and sweet cherry, through the integration and scaling of advanced sensing and digital data technologies.

 My presentation at the Citrus biotechnology symposium

 The juice sac is a unique structure found only in citrus and its close relatives.

In the first part, I will present recent, and, I believe, pioneering, results from my laboratory concerning the regulation of juice sac initiation from the fruit endocarp.

We have identified a gene that plays a regulatory role in juice sac initiation.

Furthermore, this work also addresses the question of why tomato fruits do not initiate juice sacs, and what would be required for them to produce such structures.

The second part will be more formal and, as requested, I will summarize recent physiological, molecular, and genetic findings regarding the regulation of major fruit taste-quality attributes, mainly, though not exclusively, acidity and sugar content.