​Applied and basic researches are being conducted on plant species like citrus (orange, lemon, mandarin, grapefruit, kumquat etc.), other subtropical fruits (pomegranate, avocado, loquat, pecan nut, banana) and other species that can be adapted to West Mediterranean coastal area.

-Breeding and cultivar development,

-Growing techniques,

-Postharvest physiology and storage,

-Collection and preservation of genetic resources,

-Sanitation and biological indexing of citrus species.

In the Fruit Department, 300-350 thousand virus-free bud eyes are being produced per year. Additionally, sanitation of citrus viruses and virus-like agents is being done by in vitro shoot-tip grafting technique at tissue culture laboratory of the department.

As a result of the citrus and subtropical plants breeding studies conducted till today; 81 cultivars (10 orange, 6 lemon, 15 mandarin, 5 grapefruit, 1 kumquat, 1 bergamot, 16 pomegranate, 7 avocado, 5 loquat, 3 pecan nut, 2 persimmon, 1 olive, 3 citrus rootstock, 1 loquat rootstock, 1 pecan nut rootstock) were developed and registered to Institute.​