drs. N (Nieves) Garcia Victoria

Flowers add beauty to life. My work as a Scientificresearcher in ornamental crops at the Business Unit Greenhouse Horticulture of Wageningen University & Research aims to contribute to a cleaner, more sustainable production of cut flowers and ornamental plants. From 2001, I have been leading and participating in a great number of applied research projects, both national and international. Research topics can touch the whole production chain, from propagation to post harvest, passing through all aspects in the cultivation of economically important cut flowers and ornamental plants: soil disinfection, substrate selection, improvement of fertilization, integrated pest management, the implementation of new tecnologies and materials and the efficient use of resources, specially light and energy. The red line along my work is to understand how the growing conditions affect quality: the quality of the crop, the quality of the product (before and after harvest), and (most recently) the contents of interesting metabolites in plants. Because when we understand this effects, we can influence quality.

I moved to The Netherlands in 1990, shortly after graduation in Biology at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and joined a young, growing private Laboratory that provided services and advice to the Food and Horticulture industry. The development of Florissant® (a range of products for the post-harvest treatment of cut flowers) and the post-harvest quality control for the Dutch Flower Auctions became my main activities. That’s where my fascination for the floriculture industry and the physiology of cut flowers and ornamental plants was born. Fertirrigation was my next love, and for two years I managed the activities of the horticultural division at SGS Laboratory Services.

As horticulture / floriculture is a very mature and technologically advanced industry in The Netherlands, we are often invited to participate in seminars, courses and workshops in many different countries. I have also been involved in the development of vocational training programs for students and profesional upgrading programs of the floriculture/ horticulture industry, in Spain, Marocco, Turkey, Mexico, Ecuador, Uganda, Kenya and Jordan. For these activities it is an advantage to speak fluent Spanish, Catalan, Dutch, English and French.