¿WHY PLANT BREEDING FEIJOA?

The Colombian fruit-culture currently presents a promising future due to the dynamics of international trade, the increase of the population consuming fruits in the world, migration of Colombians to others country´s, who have been commissioned to impulse new production needs for supply the demands and tastes in different places on the planet. In the two decades of the last century, Colombia was able to consolidate the strategic map of the fruit-culture product of the efforts of the respective governments, unions and producers. As a result of the foregoing, it has been established new production areas with high projected species, particularly in moderately cold weather areas. In the early twenty-first century, the possibility of export fresh and minimally processed fruit has been increased especially in the European and Asian market (CCI, 2008).

Currently, this fruit is among the ten promising agro-industrial fruit species in Colombia, it stands out as an exotic fruit, with great potential in foreign markets. The guava has always been outstanding in the development of industrial products for domestic consumption in the country, and has always enjoyed an attractive price. However, plant health problems, the unknown of ecophysiological variables that determine the environmental offerings appropriate to obtain high yields of fruit, permanent crop and quality of itself, coupled with the heterogeneity in plantations has marked an increased unstimulation in farmers, and this has increased the technological problems in producing regions (CCI, 2008). 

The main problems for close the gap between traditional producers of fruit and the potential reached in some high-tech farms can be grouped in shortages of homogeneous materials and of high productivity, lack of knowledge about nutritional needs and use water in crops, poor and expensive health control and poor agro-industrial techniques in some cases non-existent. These reasons lead to the need to investigate the use of clean technologies, from knowledge of the requirements of each species to reduce production costs, increase productivity, add value to products with quality and safety, cause a low environmental impact in productive areas and improve the quality of life for producers and consumers (CCI, 2008).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. CORPORACION COLOMBIA INTERNACIONAL. Producción y comercialización de la feijoa. 2008 Ago 8.  En: CCI [Datos en Internet] [Citado 2011 Feb 27]. Disponible en la World Wide Web: <http://www.cci.org.co/publicaciones/1_Ago-08-08%20Producci%C3%B3n%20y%20comercializac%C3%B3n%20de%20la%20feijoa.pdf>