About The Project
Tropical fruits like mangoes are becoming more popular in the U.S. as Americans develop broader tastes, but imported mangoes often lack flavor due to quarantine treatments like heat or irradiation. This creates a significant opportunity for U.S. farmers to grow premium mango varieties that deliver superior taste, which is critical since flavor is the top factor influencing food purchases, according to a survey by the International Food Information Council Foundation. Despite strong demand for flavorful and healthy mangoes, domestic production is underutilized. Our project aims to help farmers capitalize on this by developing a "multi-omics" platform that combines consumer insights and advanced science to produce mangoes with exceptional flavor and health benefits, meeting the growing demand for better-tasting specialty fruits.
The project has three main goals:
1. Evaluate different mango varieties for their performance in the field, flavor, and consumer preferences.
2. Study the genetics of mango flavor to understand which genes are responsible for the flavors that consumers prefer, using advanced scientific methods called "Omics."
3. Find natural sweeteners/sweetness enhancers in mangoes to provide options for consumers who want fruits with enhanced sweetness but lower sugar content.
Team Members
| Name | Title | Unit | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dr. Yu Wang | Project Director | Associate Professor - Food Science | University of Florida | Citrus Research and Education Center | (863) 956-8673 | yu.wang@ufl.edu |
| Dr. Jonathan H. Crane | Associate Center Director, Professor, and Tropical Fruit Crop Specialist | University of Florida | Tropical Research and Education Center | (786) 217-9271 | jhcr@ufl.edu |
| Dr. Charles A. Sims | Professor - Food Science | University of Florida | UF/IFAS Food Science and Human Nutrition | (352) 294-3592 | csims@ufl.edu |
| Dr. Lisa House |
Professor and Chair - Department of Food and Resource Economics | University of Florida Director of the Florida Agricultural Market Research Center |
Food and Resource Economics Department | (352) 294-7653 | lahouse@ufl.edu |
| Dr. Steven D. Munger | Professor, Co-Director of Research, Otolaryngology | University of Virginia School of Medicine | sdm4jb@virginia.edu | |
| Dr. Yue Niu |
Associate Professor, Statistics-GIDP |
Mathematics | University of Arizona | (520) 621-1961 | yueniu@arizona.edu |
| Dr. Xingbo Wu | Assistant Professor - Ornamental breeding, genetics, genomics and bioinformatics | University of Florida | Tropical Research and Education Center | (786)-217-9279 | xingbo.wu@ufl.edu |