Surendra Lal Shrestha*, Mira Dhakal, Iswori P.Gautam and Suprabha Pandey

National Horticulture Research Center, Khumaltar, Lalitpur

*Corresponding author’s E-mail: shsurendra@hotmail.com

*Orcid ID:0000-0003-1109-6514

Abstract
The total area, productive area, production and productivity of fruits in 2020 are 119025 ha, 1249764mt and 10.50 mt/ha respectively. Even though area and production of fruits have doubled during last 15 years (2001 to 2015) but fruit productivity is not increased. In the horticulture sector, vegetable is in better position than that of fruits. Because of no external support, perennial in nature, long time need for research results and unclear policy, fruit research is lack behind. In this context, NARC has made an effort to streamline six thematic areas of fruit research such as varietal improvement, production technologies, plant protection, post-harvest management, germplasm collection and its evaluation and propagation methods. In recent years, some promising technologies have been developed in some fruit crops; mango, citrus, papaya, banana, pomegranate, apple, walnut, kiwi fruit, litchi, Dragon fruit, and mecademia nut. Different pre and post-harvest management technologies are developed in mandarin, acid lime, papaya, kiwi, banana and pineapple and Pomegranate butter fly management in Pomogranate, anthracnose disease management in citrus and delay ripening technique in banana fruit and internal browning management in pineapple fruit. Among varietal development research, four varieties of kiwifruit, two in banana, four in litchi, two in citrus has been registered in National Seed Board. Beside this, three in mango (Malbhog, Dashehari, Amrapali), two in citrus (Washington navel and, Banskharka local proposal submitted for registration in National Seed Board. Grafting time and success rate in walnut showed better performance in Chaitra 1-22 with in-situ than bench grafting situation. Beside this, research on new emerging fruit crops like avocado, berries being studied and will get some output within few years. As lot of works to be done in fruit research within different constraints situation, research priority areas should be listed and research works should be done phase by phase according to the priority fixed.

Keywords: Fruit crops, germplasm, pre and post-harvest management, promising, registration