APPLIED ENGINEERING TOWARD SUPPORT OF CHESTNUT AND OTHER SPECIALTY CROPS IN MICHIGAN

As an umbrella project the goal is broadly to identify and conduct short- and medium-term research, programming, and support, in collaboration with multidisciplinary approaches and in conjunction with the commercial industry, to address engineering components associated with current and evolving needs and challenges with specialty crops.The current specific and broad objectives are:Objective 1:Study and develop solutions to harvest and postharvest needs of the Michigan chestnut industry.Objective 2:Partner in generation and propagation of optimal plant material for the Michigan chestnut industry.Objective 3:Support various specialty crop industries with applied research and development as challenges surface requiring engineering input.Present example is removal of the peel from pawpaw fruit, which has been one of the limiting factors to growth of pawpaw production.