Blueberries

Author Biography

Jorge B Retamales (Author) Jorge B. Retamales is a retired Professor, Departamento de Horticultura, Universidad de Talca, Chile. He is an advisor to several blueberry producing and exporting companies in Chile and Peru. He received his BS in Agricultural Engineering at the Universidad de Chile (Santiago, Chile). After managing fruit orchards for five years in southern Chile he obtained a Fulbright Scholarship to study an MS and a Ph. D. in Fruit Physiology at Michigan State University. Upon returning to Chile he worked for 30 years as assistant professor and later full professor at the Department of Horticulture of the Universidad de Talca. The emphasis of his research was fruit physiology and nutrition of apples, strawberries and blueberries. He was Director of the Department of Horticulture and later Dean of the College of Agricultural Engineering. Later on he was appointed for four years Director of Research and four years Director of Graduate Studies at the Universidad de Talca. Between 2004 and 2022 he was President of the Chilean Society for Horticultural Science. In the period 2006-2022 he represented Chile at the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). Between 2010 and 2018 he was the leader of the Strawberry Working Group. Later on (2018-2022) acted as the head of the Vine and Berry Fruits Division of the ISHS. James F Hancock (Author) James F. Hancock is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. He received his BS in Biology from Baldwin Wallace College (Berea, Ohio), a MS in Botany at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) and a Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of California, Davis. After a short stint in the Biology Department at the University of South Carolina, he moved to Michigan State University (MSU) as an assistant professor of Horticulture, where he was for over thirty years, being promoted to Professor in 1986. He was the Director of the Plant Breeding and Genetics Program at MSU from 2004 to 2009. The emphasis of his research has been on the breeding and genetics of blueberries and strawberries, and he has published prodigiously in these areas. His previous books have been "The Strawberry", "The Blueberry" (with Jorge Retamales), "Plantation Crops: Power and Plunder, Evolution and Exploitation" and "Plant Evolution and the Origin of Crop Species". He has also edited "Temperate Fruit Crop Genetics: Germplasm to Genomics", and "Environmental Biosafety" (with Rebecca Grumet, Karim Maredia and Cholani Weebadde). He is fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Science, Wilder medal recipient of the American Pomological Society, a former Fulbright Fellow to Chile and received the Technology Transfer Achievement Award from the Innovation Center of MSU for his blueberry cultivar releases.