Abstract: The Century model was used to simulate soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling, and crop production dynamics in an ongoing field experiment in Uruguay (started in 1963). The model was calibrated using observed data from three treatments (crop or crop?pasture rotations) and validated with a fourth treatment. The model correctly predicted the impact of different treatments on microbial biomass, N mineralization, soil respiration, and crop yields.

ABSTRACT. Peach is a temperate fruit species that is cultivated under various edaphoclimatic conditions all over the world. In Brazil, in the early 1950s, peaches were planted only in São Paulo state and in the Southern states, and the harvest period was restricted to 15 days. Currently, mainly due to peach breeding programs, it is cultivated in subtropical areas and even in high altitude tropical areas, with a harvest period of over 100 days.

ABSTRACT. Peach is a temperate fruit species that is cultivated under various edaphoclimatic conditions all over the world. In Brazil, in the early 1950s, peaches were planted only in São Paulo state and in the Southern states, and the harvest period was restricted to 15 days. Currently, mainly due to peach breeding programs, it is cultivated in subtropical areas and even in high altitude tropical areas, with a harvest period of over 100 days.

ABSTRACT. Pear is a temperate crop, which grows in mild winter regions, and may present several development anomalies, which can negatively affect yield and fruit quality. To overcome these obstacles and achieve economically satisfactory yields, the use of bud break promoters has shown promising results. The most used promoters are hydrogen cyanamide (HC), mineral oil (MO) and Erger®. The present study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of HC, MO and Erger® following different chilling hour accumulation on bud break of 'Hosui' pear.

ABSTRACT. Water relation between rootstocks and cultivars is a key issue in pear culture. Studies suggest that the plant water flow may be related to the greater or lesser grafted plant vigor, where an increase in the hydraulic resistance caused by the graft union would lead to plants with lower vigor. The Xyl'em-Plus apparatus was developed to measure the hydraulic conductance of xylem vessels and the embolism in the vascular system of woody plants, which through small segments of plant stems, measures the percentage of loss of conductance (PLC) in the xylem due to air blockage.

ABSTRACT. The adaptation of a temperate climate fruit cultivar to a certain area depends mainly on its chilling requirement and the chilling accumulation in such places. Several attempts have been made to estimate these two conditions, using different models. The great variation among the models to calculate chilling requirement makes it necessary to determine their efficiency in a given location.

ABSTRACT. Low fruit set is one of the main factors leading to low yields of the pear orchards in Brazil. Exogenous application of plant growth regulators (PGRs) shows great potential to overcome this problem. Recent studies have shown great promise of several ethylene inhibitors in increasing fruit set and yields of several fruit species. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of several PGRs sprayed at different timings on fruit set, yield, and fruit quality of 'Rocha' pear in southern Brazil.

ABSTRACT. Flower induction and differentiation are complex phenomena not fully understood in pear trees. Ethylene is a plant hormone that seems to play an important role in flower induction. Exogenous ethephon (Eth) and naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) applications have shown promising results to increase return bloom and yields in some pear cultivars. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of Eth and NAA on return bloom, yield and shoot length of 'Rocha' pear trees in southern Brazil.

ABSTRACT. Raspberry is a berry crop of great economic importance, and its cultivation has expanded worldwide. Information on the genetic parameters of raspberry for use in breeding programs is currently limited. We used Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML) and Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP) to estimate variance components and predict genetic parameters for morphological, phytochemical, and mineral components in primocane-fruiting raspberries in southern Brazil.

Abstract: Yield gap assessments at the field-level are key for developing management practices to increase crop production in a sustainable manner. Although rice is an important food crop worldwide, yield gaps remain less investigated in Latin American rice systems. In this study, we evaluated field-level factors for closing yield gaps (based on attainable farm yield, defined as the mean of top 10 % of farmers) for rice production in Uruguay using crop management and yield records from 2012 to 2017, covering approximately 70,000 ha per year (40 % of total rice area).