Early detection of fungal storage pathogens on pome fruits (EARLDETEC)

Fungal storage pathogens of pome fruits are responsible for major losses worldwide. The fruits get infected in the field, but symptoms start to be visible during the storage period, which is problematic for their marketing and trading. Detecting the latent infections is a challenge but provides data on the pathogen colonisation during fruit development or at harvest time. Knowing this, measures for disease control could be improved. Several activities were undertaken in the partner countries, including the monitoring of storage diseases and the development of new diagnostic tests. A range of tools for managing these pathogens is now available and can help the deployment of a pre storage monitoring for storage diseases in the future.