engleski

Postharvest fungal diseases of early season fruits as production risks

The most important early season and soft fruit crops in Croatia are strawberries, and sweet and sour cherries. The strawberry is undoubtedly the most popular soft fruit, which is supported by significant increase of strawberry production and consumption during the last 15 years. Although the fruits of strawberries and cherries may be stored for one to three weeks, phytopathogenic fungi that develop on these fruits may cause decay. The most frequent pathogen on strawberry fruits is Botrytis cinerea (gray mould), Monilinia fructigena and Monilinia laxa (brown rot) on cherry fruits. There is also Glomerella cingulata (Colletotrichum spp.) which causes fruit anthracnose. Besides these fungal species, polyphagous species, such as Rhizopus stolonifer (soft rot), and species from the genus Mucor, Pencillium (e.g. P. expansum), Alternaria (e.g. A. alternata) and others may be present on the fruits of strawberries and cherries. The consequence of fungal decay may be the total loss of fruits after the harvest. These pathogen fungi are present on fruits during the growing season and before the harvest. Therefore, the implementation of appropriate protection measures is important in order to decrease losses. The magnitude of postharvest losses is largely influenced by the environmental conditions such as temperature and relative humidity in which they are kept after harvest. In strawberry production, farmers experience 2% loss in a good year and 5-10% in a bad year. Post-harvest treatment is important. Strawberries can lose quality within 2-3 h after harvest. There is a 5-7% loss during the first 2 h and after 2-3 h quality deteriorates exponentially if the fruit are not properly treated. This paper presents methods of postharvest management on economic results in early ripening soft fruit production. In the framework of risk management, it analyses production risk of fungal diseases in postharvest technology and strategies to cope with it.

fungal disease ; risk management ; early season fruits

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