Chronica - Acta Horticulturae

ted in this year. Most of these studies have been
conducted with the co-operation of Universities
and other research institutes.
The Horticultural Department also carries out
research on organic strawberry growing and
fruit adaptation studies with apple, pear, cherry,
sour cherry.
VEGETABLE CROPS
The key vegetable breeding studies include
brassica (white cabbage), pepper (kapia types),
and fresh bean. The Institute co-ordinates brassica
breeding studies that have been conducted
as a part of “National F 1 Hybrid Project” funded
by the State Planning Organization of Turkey. It
is a joint project including Universities, research
institutes and private seed companies. The F 1
Pepper Hybrid Project is also a part of the
National F 1 Hybrid Project. The aim of the brassica
and pepper project is to produce enhancement
breeding for the private sector. Fresh
bean breeding is underway to obtain resistance
to anthracnose, a harmful disease in our region.
Agronomic studies on fertilization via drip irrigation
system (fertigation) have been conducted
under cover or in the field.
FLORICULTURE
The key project is the National Tulip and
Hyacinthus spp. Breeding Project funded by
TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological
Research Council of Turkey). The project coordinated
by KTAE was initiated in 2006. The
major aims of the project are to collect tulip
material in Anatolia, which is the gene center of
the tulip, to make characterization and adapta-
tion studies of the collected materials, and to
ensure conservation of these materials in
National Plant Gene Bank.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Semiha
Güler
Dr. Semiha Güler, Karadeniz Tarimsal Arastirma
Enstitüsü, 55001 Samsun, Turkey, email:
semihag@yahoo.com
Global Crop Diversity Trust
Receives Gates Foundation Funding
The Global Crop Diversity Trust has received
the largest grant ever for the conservation of
crop diversity! The Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation awarded $30 million to a partnership
of the UN Foundation and the Trust for an
unprecedented global initiative to rescue threatened,
high-priority collections of crop diversity
in developing countries and to support information
systems to improve their conservation and
availability. The grant will also enable developing
countries and international agricultural
research centres to place seed samples in the
Svalbard Global Seed Vault for safety purposes.
Jane Toll and Luigi Guarino, internationally prominent
figures in our field for more than two
decades, have joined the Trust staff to lead this
programme. $7.5 million of the grant was
earmarked for the Trust’s endowment, contingent
on our finding a donor willing to match it.
We are extremely grateful to Norway for volunteering
to do so and in the process becoming
the largest country donor to the Trust, taking
their total given so far to over $15 million.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
and the Trust have announced an historic partnership
and financial arrangement that will
ensure the permanent conservation and availability
of the world’s largest and most important
rice collection. See www.croptrust.org for
details.
A new Executive Board was formed. Dr.
Margaret Catley-Carlson, current chair of the
Global Water Partnership, former deputy head
of UNICEF and former head of CIDA, Canada’s
development assistance agency, was elected to
chair the board. Prof. Wangari Maathai, Nobel
Peace Prize Laureate and head of Kenya’s
Greenbelt Movement, was elected vice-chair.
Lewis Coleman, President of Dreamworks
Animation, founding president of the Moore
Foundation and former Vice Chairman and CFO
of the Bank of America, was appointed to chair
the Trust’s Finance and Investment Committee.
We bid a warm farewell to our wonderful interim
board, headed by Ambassador Fernando
Gerbasi, under whose leadership the Trust was
firmly established.
Cary Fowler, Executive Secretary of the
Global Crop Diversity Trust
World Food Prize Awarded to Philip
Nelson, Food Scientist and Horticulturist
Dr. Philip E. Nelson
Philip Nelson, Professor
of Food Science
at Purdue University,
was named winner of
the 2007 World Food
Prize for his pioneering
work in aseptic storage
of horticultural products.
His invention of a
specially designed valve
has permitted the storage of horticultural products
such as tomato pulp in huge tanks to
await final processing to useful products.
Aseptic bulk storage has been used in Brazil to
transport orange juice in ships especially designed
for transporting fresh juice to the US and
Europe. Dr. Nelson has also created the techniques
for storage of food products in a “ bagin-a
box” system that allows food to be stored
and shipped without spoilage.
Nelson received his PhD degree while a member
of the Department of Horticulture at Purdue in
1967. He was a staff member in the
Department from 1961 to 1983 when he
moved to the newly created Department of
Food Science where he served for many years as
Head of the Department. Phil grew up in
Indiana where his family grew and processed
tomatoes.
ISHS • 30