Incidence of postharvest decays on cultivars of pear, apricot, sour cherry and peach under two storage conditions

Among fruit diseases, those fungal pathogens are of great importance which cause fruit rot. These are mainly fungi of Penicillium, Fusarium, Aspergillus, Botrytis, and Monilinia spp. Among fruit rot pathogens Monilinia spp. (mainly M. fructigena and M. laxa) the most important fruit rot disease (Batra, 1991; Holb, 2004; Balla et al., 2008). Since the pathogens are wound parasites, it appears on the fruits at injuries after hail or strong pest damage. Brown rotting of fruits starts and then grey conidiophores appears on their surface. The fruits often mummify and stay on the tree. The primary inoculum sources of the disease are the dead woody parts and the fruit mummies. The disease can also cause significant damages during storage. Its host plants include the stone fruit species (Holb, 2004, 2006). Under storage conditions, decreasing temperature reduced the growth of Monilinia spp. (e.g. Byrde & Willetts, 1977, Tian et al., 2001). Tian et al. (2001) showed that growth of M. fructicola on sour cherry significantly declined with increased CO2 concentrations at above 15% and the fungus was more sensitive to increasing CO2 concentrations at lower temperature ranges. As apple stored such conditions as traditional cold (TC) and controlled atmosphere (CA) storage methods, they may affect postharvest rot of apple caused by M. fructigena. In addition, temporal dynamics pattern of brown rot development may differ in these storage methods under a long-term storage conditions. The aims of this two-year study was firstly, to determine postharvest decays of pear, apricot, sour cherry and peach cultivars under two storage methods (TC and CA); and secondly, to identify causal agents of postharvest decays of two pear cultvars under traditional cold storage conditions.