Horticulture Innovation Lab

Consortium meeting attendees group picture

Research priorities determined at Consortium meeting

Regional leaders traveled from across the world to join the Horticulture Innovation Lab and Consortium specialists in Florida to choose the top research priorities for each region.

South Asia Horticulture Workshop focuses on strengthening gender equity and the fruit sector as the region become increasingly threatened by climate change

The South Asia regional horticulture workshop, hosted by FORWARD Nepal in September, wrapped up a series of four very successful workshops.

UC Davis students speak to refugee farmers at IRC New Roots farm in Sacramento

Sharing a low-cost solar dryer with refugee farmers in Sacramento

UC Davis student team leads workshops on the chimney solar dryer with refugee farmers at Sacramento's New Roots farm.

Horticulture Training and Services center staff, interns and AVENIRs de-shell peanuts under a shade structure. They are smiling.

Young interns partner to deliver lessons to Guinean farmers

Days after completing her master’s thesis, Brooke Stefancik flew to Guinea for an internship and her first steps in an agricultural extension career.

woman farmer in front of farmer group, smiling

How participatory research works with irrigation project in Uganda

Read the story behind a farmer-led irrigation project with women farmers in Uganda that shows the challenges and benefits of how participatory research can work.

close up on young leaves of sweet potato plant

How to cook sweet potato leaves, with thanks from Ethiopia

Did you know the leaves of the sweet potato plant are also a tasty, nutritious food? In Ethiopia, where sweet potatoes can be a staple crop, a UC Davis student recently helped farmers reconsider their sweet potato crop in a new culinary light. Watch this video...

Young woman teaching about pineapples in classroom full of farmers.

Video: UC Davis student connects with Ugandan farmers over pineapple postharvest practices

Sometimes it helps to reconnect with what motivates your work. For Karin Albornoz, Ph.D. student, that means getting out of the lab and working with small-scale farmers to improve postharvest handling practices.

Student leads a discussion group in outdoor classroom

UC Davis and Uganda students consider gender in irrigation design

Julia Jordan, UC Davis graduate student, writes about her experience working with Busitema University students considering gender issues in relation to designing irrigation solutions.

Group visits pineapple plot at demonstration center in Guinea

Opening a center for horticulture innovations in Guinea

Andra Williams writes about progress in Guinea, where she has been working for the Horticulture Innovation Lab to help open a new horticulture training and services center, with young entrepreneurs called "AVENIR" agents.

man counting cash while group members watch

Building trust in food systems – here and in Cambodia

What is the role of trust in our food system? It can be easy to forget that trust is a critical first step in many agricultural relationships. Establishing trust between actors in a food system has been critical for a project in Cambodia focused on increasing availability of safe vegetables for Cambodian consumers.

Close-up of vegetable seedling planted in mulch next to irrigation tube, in agriculture field, with group of people in background

Events launch irrigation project in Guatemala

Meagan Terry writes about opening activities for this new project focused on drip irrigation and conservation agriculture, including initial training activities and establishing a demonstration garden.

Professionals hold large wood trays filled with sliced vegetables for solar drying

Training postharvest partners in Tanzania’s horticulture sector

Editor’s note: Michael Reid shares highlights from a five-day short course on postharvest handling of horticultural crops, funded and led by the Horticulture Innovation Lab in Tanzania this summer.

Photo essay from Cambodia: Vegetables from field to market

In 2016, UC Davis team members from the Horticulture Innovation Lab walked through postharvest practices of vegetable farmers working with a project team led by Manny Reyes.

Woman farmer picks squash from trellis plant, with American scientist observing.

Following vegetables from field to market in Cambodia

While in Cambodia, I visited a project working with women vegetable farmers who have been successfully practicing conservation agriculture. As a postharvest specialist, I have been advising the team remotely about postharvest handling and low-cost technologies.

Paudel stands behind two students that work on computers

Students help students learn state-of-the-art science

In a classroom in Ghana, graduate student Dev Paudel from the University of Florida bent over computers with students and research assistants as they learned the basics of R, a free, open-source programming language for statistical analysis that he had installed on the computers earlier that week.