ABSTRACT - Mandarin cultivars show a great diversity of fruit-quality and sensory characteristics, together with an extended harvest season. Citrus breeding is focused on exploiting season niches for higher prices as well as nutritional and sensory aspects, among others. In this context, the sensory characterization of new hybrids and the identi-fication of key characteristics of consumers ? liking provide valuable information towards breeding efforts and marketing strategies.

ABSTRACT.- Nutraceutical properties of mandarins are of great interest to promote their consumption. The occurrence of free amino acids in foods is relevant to assess the nutritional value of it. To learn more about the amino acids' occurrence and variability between species, a targeted metabolomics study in 'Ellendale', 'Willowleaf' and 'Page' varieties was performed through ion exchange liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. The studied amino acids were asparagine, glutamic acid, glutamine, histidine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, threonine and tyrosine.

ABSTRACT. - Potato bacterial wilt is caused by the devastating bacterial pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum. Quantitative resistance to this disease has been and is currently introgressed from a number of wild relatives into cultivated varieties through laborious breeding programs. Here, we present two methods that we have developed to facilitate the screening for resistance to bacterial wilt in potato. The first one uses R. solanacearum reporter strains constitutively expressing the luxCDABE operon or the green fluorescent protein (gfp) to follow pathogen colonization in potato germplasm.

ABSTRACT. - To increase nitrogen (N) use efficiency and reduce water pollution from vegetable production, it is necessary to optimize N management. Fluorescence-based optical sensors are devices that can improve N fertilization through non-destructive field monitoring of crop variables.