Miguel Ybarra Lalor
Agronomist, Phytotechnician, of the ETSIA of the UPM of Madrid.
Passionate of the Agronomy in general and of the Fruticulture in particular, and very interested in Plant Physiology.
As a mission in professional life I have the need to know intimately how the soil-water-plant-atmosphere system works in the crops in which I work, in order to recommend the management that leads to optimize production in each case.
I had the opportunity to do as End of Career Project, in an important winery of the Marco de Jerez, the watering project of a vineyard and the study of the response of the quality of the grape-juice to the irrigation.
As a first professional job, as an Engineer, I entered a large farm to manage the 750 hectares of olive groves that they had for olive production for fresh consumption and for olive oil, and to direct the transformation and planting of 1,100 hectares of land that was calm to a intensive olive grove, everything with destination to mill.
Once this task was finished, I went to an important farm management company to carry out irrigation projects and then transformation, always of intensive fruit crops, in the provinces of Seville, Cadiz and Malaga. In this same company I had the opportunity to travel to California first time to learn irrigation techniques at UC Davis. And also from this same company I contacted an important, and at that time incipient, laboratory specialized in fertirrigación of woody crops and the provision of other services to the agri-food and environmental chain.
Soon I was working as technical director of the agronomic department of this laboratory, giving advice on irrigation, nutrition and fertilization of intensive crops around the world. Apart from working with fantastic professionals to whom I owe a lot, I had the opportunity to visit the main fruit regions of Spain (Aragón, Cataluña, Valencia, Murcia, Badajoz, ..) and Portugal (Algarve, Alentejo and Ribatejo), as well as Morocco and Egypt, and Chile. And a special mention deserves this great country, Chile, with a very potent fruit and agronomy, and a great exporting vocation, where I have been, in different periods, during almost 5 years very involved in the production mainly of table grapes, citrus fruits, avocado and stone fruit, with very important exporting companies.
It was there where I met the figure of the agronomic adviser-consultant and where I decided that this was what I wanted to do; and I thought that this could have a place in the agronomy of the Guadalquivir Valley in Western Andalusia.
I started advising in January of 2006, and, until now, I have not had to regret a minute. Today we have the confidence of some of the most important producers of the Guadalquivir Valley. We have had occasion to travel with some frequency to California and Florida, to Morocco for more than 12 years, to Egypt for 4 years, to France, throughout Spain and Portugal and again Chile, Peru and Israel. Each trip is like a complete Master in fruit growing, where we can learn from the agronomy there and reflect and see from the outside what we do here, which is extremely enriching.
And in that we are …
