Expert in the spotlight:

Topic in the spotlight: This interview explores the cultural, scientific, and agricultural significance of pomegranates, celebrating their designation as the Fruit of the Year for 2024. Dr Idit Ginzberg shares her journey of uncovering the mysteries behind pomegranate fruit cracking. Through interdisciplinary collaborations and innovative research, she highlights the challenges and breakthroughs in ensuring the quality and resilience of this iconic fruit, providing valuable insights for growers worldwide.
Pomegranates have been chosen as the Fruit of the Year for 2024. What inspired you to focus your research on pomegranates, and how did this journey begin?
The pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) fruit is of great significance to me, culturally and scientifically.
The pomegranate is rooted in the Jewish tradition; it is one of the ‘Seven Species’ (wheat, barley, grapes, figs, olives, dates, and pomegranates) mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as being native to the Land of Israel. The pomegranate seeds symbolize the 613 sacred obligations that form the foundation of traditional Jewish practice. The abundance of seeds in the pomegranate also symbolises fertility and prosperity.
Scientifically, pomegranate fruit is well known for its health-beneficial metabolites, particularly the anthocyanins and the polyphenol punicalagin that accumulate in the arils and peel. Due to its medicinal quality—potent antioxidative and anti-inflammatory activities that contribute to the heart’s health, among other benefits—there is a high global demand for the fruit.
My research focuses on the peel/skin quality of fruits and vegetables. The pomegranate’s appearance affects its marketing and storage. The main concerns related to pomegranate skin quality are the accumulation of anthocyanins in the peel to obtain the characteristic deep red color and cracking of the fruit surface, which leads to costly yield loss.
My journey began when, one day, ten years ago, a grower who also represented a packing house stepped into my office asking for advice on producing premium-quality pomegranates for export. The data collected then provided the basic knowledge for the current CrackSense project.

From your perspective as a researcher, what makes this fruit particularly significant or unique, both scientifically and agriculturally?
I am focusing on the quality of pomegranate peel. For simplicity, it comprises an outer colored layer – designated skin or rind – and the white spongy tissue below it. The very thin skin layer is the one that holds the tension that develops at the surface of the fruit while it expands during the growth. Weak skin will crack during fruit development, resulting in fruit splitting.
Scientifically, I am interested in deciphering the anatomical and molecular characteristics of the skin that make it resistant to cracking. Agriculturally, I am interested in understanding how environmental cues, physiological growth factors, and orchard practices affect the cracking susceptibility of the fruit.
As a researcher at the Volcani Institute, which serves as the leading organisation of the CrackSense consortium, could you tell us more about your research focus on the CrackSense project?
The CrackSense consortium brings together several groups with expertise in plant physiology, precision agriculture, and remote sensing to collect climatic and plant growth data and correlate it with fruit-cracking events.
Particularly for pomegranates, we apply several irrigation protocols that may enhance or reduce fruit cracking. Our activities include but are not limited to the application of trunk and fruit sensors to monitor their development during the growth period, drones that are equipped with various camera types that collect tree growth parameters from a bird’s eye view, climatic data collected from satellites, and finally, manual collection of plant and fruit data. In addition, we are developing an imaging system for identifying cracks as early as they emerge at the surface of the fruit.
Your research revealed that treatments like GA4+7 + BA can reduce fruit cracking. Can you explain how this works and its implications for growers?
Prior to the CrackSense project, I studied the phenomenon of calyx-end cracking in ‘Cripps Pink’ apple. Spraying the trees shortly after fruit-set with a solution of plant growth regulators, cytokinin 6-benzyl adenine (BA) and gibberellic acids 4 plus 7 (GA4+7), significantly reduced fruit cracking.
The BA+GA4+7 treatment increased epidermal cell density in apple fruit skin, which may have contributed to strengthening the skin by:
- increasing cell-to-cell adhesion in the maturing fruit skin,
- adding more cell-wall components to the cuticle matrix,
- thickening the cuticle layer, and
- possibly enhancing crack repair.
A similar effect is applicable to pomegranates and other fruit trees. We developed a spraying protocol for apple growers that can be found in our publications.
What excites you most about the future of pomegranate research, and how can interdisciplinary collaborations like CrackSense contribute to tackling the challenges faced by growers worldwide?
What excites me most is the interdisciplinary collaborations per se. I am exposed to research approaches from fields outside my area of expertise, especially those of precision agriculture and remote sensing.
As the consortium includes groups working similarly on mandarins, grapes, and sweet cherries from Israel and other European countries, comparing their data with pomegranate is most interesting. Lastly, the comprehensive approach applied by the consortium members is expected to result in new insights into the causes of cracking for different fruits and regions of the globe.
