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Significance

Worldwide, brown rot poses the greatest disease risk for crop loss where stone fruits are grown in warm, wet climates. The disease has been studied for almost 200 years in Europe, for more than a 100 years in North America, and in other parts of the world as the fruit industries developed. Until the discovery and development of highly effective fungicides during the last quarter to half-century, significant losses from brown rot could be expected when fruit ripening coincided with periods of rainfall.

Figure 29

The use of fungicides, however, has not been without its problems. When highly effective and specific fungicides were used, brown rot fungi became resistant to them (Figure 29). The brown rot fungi have been used to study resistance to fungicides, serving as a model for development of strategies for managing or delaying the occurrence of fungicide resistance in plant pathogenic fungi.

Quote from 'As You Like It': Act II, Scene vii (in reference by Byrde and Willetts, 1977)

And so, from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.

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