Department of Production Technology and Management
The tasks of this department are as follows:
1. Pest and plant disease management
Tasks:
- Identification and diagnosis of pests, diseases, and weeds in pistachio orchards
- Investigation of pistachio pests and diseases to timely forecast their prevalence, outbreak and manage them efficiently
- Evaluation of the efficacy of natural enemies of pistachio pests and antagonistic agents of pistachio diseases in biological control programs
- Investigation of the mechanisms of resistance in cultivated and wild pistachio species against pistachio pests and diseases
- Assessment of susceptibility of pistachio rootstocks and cultivars to important pistachio diseases
- Ecology and biology of Aspergillus and aflatoxin contamination in pistachio and their different control management methods
- Assessment of efficiency of new pesticides and fungicides against pistachio pest and diseases and determining their side effects on natural enemies
2. Water management and plant nutrition
Tasks:
- Study of water, soil and plant relationships and their limitations.
- Evaluation of suitable soil and water quality for optimum production.
- Determination of water requirement of pistachio trees in traditional and modern irrigation systems.
- Determination of water requirement of pistachio trees in common surface irrigation systems and modern irrigation methods.
- Assessment of salinity, drought stresses and toxicity of specific elements on different pistachio rootstocks and cultivars.
- Determine the nutritional needs of different pistachio cultivars.
- Time and method of application of chemical fertilizers in different irrigation systems especially micro irrigation.
- Balance of nutrients in soil and plant and its relation to soil microorganisms
- Assessments of application different macro and microelements on pistachio trees
- Investigation of nutrient deficiency in pistachio producing areas
- Research on the nutritional disorders of pistachio trees