|
Disease: Brown Rot
Pathogen: Monilinia fructicola
Host: Stone fruits, Prunus spp.
In addition to apples, peaches and plums are popular backyard trees for homeowners who wish to grow their own fruit. When peaches and plums are harvested, homeowners may notice blemishes and blotches on their fruits. Brown rot is one of the most important, if not the most important, disease of stone fruits such as peaches, plums, cherries, apricots and almonds worldwide. It is caused by the fungus Monilinia fructicola. Symptoms and signs of brown rot are shown in the figure and include the brown fuzzy growth of the fungus on the fruit surface and the rotting of the fruit beneath it. This rotting can occur on the tree, in storage, and on the kitchen shelf.
The fungus has two spore stages, one forming in the spring on the mummified fruit beneath the trees. This spore stage allows the fungus to establish new infections in flowers in the spring. The second spore stage infects flowers, twigs, and fruit. It is this second stage that is most commonly seen and which causes fruit rot.
The disease is managed in several ways. First, some resistant cultivars are available. Second, fungicides are effective in reducing damage when applied several times at the flowering stages. Third, infection of isolated individual trees can also be reduced by pruning infected twigs and removing mummified fruit hanging in the trees and from beneath the tree.
License to Copy. This notice hereby grants permission to APSnet users to copy the Image of the Week for noncommercial, personal use. All components of APSnet are copyrighted (including the Image of the Week) and may not be reproduced or distributed except by express permission of APS. Copyright is not claimed for material provided by United States government employees as part of their work. APSnet copyright extends to images, text, graphics, photographs, illustrations, audio, video, computer software, and all other elements of the site.
Instructions to Copy. For PC, position your mouse cursor on the week’s image, click the right mouse button, and choose "Save Picture As..." or "Save this Image as..." whichever is the case. For Mac, click the only mouse button and follow the same steps. Users may want to set up a specific directory and file naming scheme for storing images; otherwise, they will be saved using your system defaults. Images may be used in any software application that supports JPEG file format or viewed in an Internet browser as local files.
© Copyright 2004 by The American Phytopathological Society