Activities involve natural products and nutraceuticals; mechanisms involved in shelf life extension of horticultural products; processing technologies for adding value to horticultural commodities; new crops and crop improvement. Current projects involving nutraceuticals include capsaicinoids in peppers, lycopene from watermelon, thujone/camphor from sage and thymol/carvacrol from oregano. Shelf life extension projects include defining the mechanism of opalescence in pecans and evaluating technologies to prevent it. Processing technologies under development include filtration processing for lycopene segregation from watermelon and collaboration on a project to develop x-ray as a non-destructive means for pecan grading and sorting. New crops under investigation include sage and oregano, both targeted for nutraceutical processing. Associated cropping systems for these crops, and for mechanized watermelon harvest for lycopene production, are also under development. Crop improvement activities involve selection for specific nutraceutical production potential for peppers, sage and oregano. Development of integrated production, harvesting, postharvest handling and processing systems for horticultural crops is a focus of research activities.

Major Areas of Interest:
- Natural Products in Foods
- Supercritical Carbon Dioxide/Liquefied Gas Extraction Technologies
- New Crop and Cropping Systems Introduction
- Shelf Life Enhancement Technologies
- Softening Mechanisms in Ripening Fruit