Faculty contacts:  Lailiang Cheng, Chris Wien

The plant physiology focuses include metabolic and environmental regulation of photosynthesis, carbon-nitrogen relationships, and nutrition physiology and management of fruit crops. Other investigations have included studies on fruit set, physiological disorders of vegetables, and bulb formation in onions.

The primary goal of fruit physiology research program has been to design/modify nutrient management practices to improve productivity and fruit quality of New York fruit crops, including carbon as well as mineral nutrition. We use both conventional and molecular approaches to build a program that combines basic research with applied aspects to address both industry needs and nutrition physiology/biochemistry of fruit crops.

Applied research in this area focuses on nitrogen uptake, translocation, storage, and remobilization, and its interaction with carbohydrates in apples and grapevines. Basic research focuses on understanding carbon-nitrogen interaction, metabolic and environmental regulation of carbon assimilation and transport, and physiological mechanisms whereby apple and grapevines deal with nutrient and other environmental stresses.