Fungus Fruit Trees Pt 2
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. We told you last week about a WSU researcher trying to understand as much as he can about mold and fungus in our orchards.
Achour Amiri says here in Washington, his focus includes both blue and gray molds as well as bull's-eye rot and other emerging diseases that attack the fruit from the inside ...
AMIRI ... "Our hope is to conduct research in order to stay ahead of the different molds. That's probably the best way to predict how molds will develop from one year to another. Developing such tools will help us to improve decay management, improve mold management, improve identification, or correct characterization of different molds."
Amiri is also working on best spray practices to control those invaders ...
AMIRI ... "Yeah, that's probably the challenge, especially the ones that infect the fruit in the orchard. The ones that are mostly found in storage that's another story. We can predict them because they are there more consistently. But the ones that start the infection in the orchards those are mainly impacted by the weather conditions you have in the orchard. Also some management practices, whether you spray a fungicide at the right time, whether you spray the right fungicide ... can impact the way those molds will show up in post-harvest."
Amiri says more than 80 molds and fungi thrive on tree fruit in our state, some that harm the fruit, but some that are beneficial by limiting the development of other pathogens.
