Brown rot on stone fruit: from epidemiology studies to the development of effective control strategies

In the last years, our research has focused on the study of brown rot on stone fruit caused by Monilinia spp. in the ‘Valle del Ebro’ (Spain). The epidemiology of this disease was thoroughly investigated in the field and one of the main outcomes was the development of a prediction model that indicates the risk of infection. Furthermore, the epidemiology was also studied in the postharvest phase, providing a lot of information regarding the relevance of the main postharvest handling operations, the identification of fungal population in packing houses, the fruit infection risks and the influence of temperature and humidity on conidia survival. Additionally, many efforts have been orientated to the development of control strategies for both pre and postharvest periods. Traditionally, chemical fungicides have been used to preserve fruit quality over extended periods of storage or transportation. However, the growing public concern over health and environmental hazards associated with high levels of pesticides has resulted in restrictions imposed by legislation and also by distribution companies. In this context, our main goal has been the development of environmentally friendly alternative strategies to synthetic fungicides in order to control brown rot on stone fruit. Although many studies have demonstrated the efficacy of these alternative treatments, only a few of them are currently applied under commercial conditions. Biocontrol agents, natural compounds from different origins and physical means are the main approaches which have been studied, with different success levels. There are several reasons for the limited success of these treatments, such as the inconsistency of results, variability of the efficacy under commercial conditions, low persistence, a narrow spectrum range of activity, the difficulties in developing a shelf-stable formulated product that retains efficacy (in the case of biocontrol agents), and economical and regulatory limitations. Generally, it is accepted that the combination of different strategies is necessary to improve the control of postharvest diseases and that the real solution needs to integrate different tools to achieve satisfactory disease control. The aim of this review is to describe the main efforts conducted by our research group regarding the control of brown rot on stone fruit, from epidemiology studies to the development of effective control strategies