Improved control of orchard pests reduces storage rots

摘要

Better control of fruit boring pests, notably codling and tortrix, will significantly reduce the level of brown rot, the main cause of losses in apples (and pears) over the past 20 years or so. This problem has been highlighted in rot surveys in the 1990s and again in an HDC-funded study carried out over the past two years by EMR plant pathologist Dr Angela Berrie. Describing her work at the EMRA Top Fruit Members' Storage Day in March, she said that, to determine the level of rots and their causes,she visited seven packhouses in Kent and one in Herefordshire in January and March, when she examined fruit going over the graders and in rot bins.