University of California, Riverside Citrus Variety Collection facts for kids
The UCR Citrus Variety Collection (CVC) is a huge and important collection of citrus plants from all over the world. It's used for science projects, creating new types of plants (called plant breeding), and teaching people about citrus at the UC Riverside in Riverside, California.
Contents
What's in the Citrus Collection?
This collection has over 1,000 different types of citrus plants. For each type, they usually plant two trees. Most of the plants are from the Citrus family, but there are also 28 other related plant groups that are part of the larger Rutaceae plant family.
The main part of the collection covers about 25 acres (10 hectares) on the UC Riverside campus. There are also smaller parts of the collection in Irvine, California (2 acres or 0.8 hectares) and Thermal, California (2 acres or 0.8 hectares). Some of these plants were first brought here in the early 1900s. Others have been added over time by different people who managed the collection. Newer types have also been developed through plant breeding or brought in by a special program called the Citrus Clonal Protection Program (CCPP). This program checks trees for the nursery and citrus growing businesses.
How the Citrus Collection Started
The CVC began with about 500 types of citrus plants spread across 5 acres (2 hectares). It was started by Herbert John Webber, who was a professor of plant breeding and the director of the early UC Citrus Experiment Station.
What the Citrus Collection is Used For
The collection is a valuable resource for genetic research and plant breeding. Scientists study many things here, like entomology (insects), nematology (tiny worms), microbiology (tiny living things), plant pathology (plant diseases), soil science (dirt), and metabolomics (chemicals in plants).
The USDA-ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Citrus and Dates (NCGRCD) also uses this collection. They help protect the many different types of plants in the Rutaceae family.
This collection is one of the most diverse citrus plant collections anywhere. Besides helping with research, it also offers educational tours and activities through the University of California, Riverside.
A photographer named David Karp took pictures of the fruits and trees in the CVC. These pictures are available online thanks to Toni Siebert.
Who Manages the Collection?
Many people have helped manage and care for the Citrus Variety Collection over the years. Here are some of the main curators:
- Herbert John Webber (1912–1936)
- Leon Dexter Batchelor (1936–1946)
- Willard Paul Bitters (1946–1982)
- Robert K. Soost (1982–1986)
- Tracy L. Kahn (1995–current) is the current Senior Museum Scientist in charge of the collection.
See also
In Spanish: Colección de variedades de cítricos en Riverside para niños
