Cherry and plum are prone to brown rot diseases. Synthetic fungicides are still the main management tool to control brown rot but there is a need to develop eco-friendly methods. Five commercial biopesticides including BioPK (Trichoderma viride, T. harzianum and T. longibranchum), BoniProtect (Aureobasidium pullulans), Trianum (T. harzianum), PreStop (Gliocladium catenulatum) and Serenade (Bacillus subtilis) along with Indar (fenbuconazole, a synthetic fungicide) were tested against Monilinia laxa which products applied before and after pathogen inoculation. Indar completely inhibited brown rot development. Serenade partially inhibited M. laxa when applied before pathogen inoculation. The efficacy of two indigenous strains (B. subtilis B91 and A. pullulans Y126) were evaluated under ambient conditions or 1°C; Indar and Serenade were used as control treatments. Cherry and plum were first treated with specific products, then wounded and inoculated with M. laxa. Indar completely inhibited M. laxa under both conditions. Under ambient conditions, only B91 reduced the incidence of disease. When stored at 1°C for 4 weeks, all biocontrol treatments reduced the incidence of disease. However, when fruits were left under ambient conditions for an additional 1 week, the incidence of disease did not differ between treatments. Post-harvest application of biopesticides under 1°C was studied with Rovral used as a control. Cherry and plum were submerged into individual treatments and stored at 1°C for 6 weeks. Rovral reduced the incidence of disease, whilst all biopesticides did not. In conclusion, Serenade, B91 and Y126 can partially inhibit M. laxa when applied before pathogen infection. The present study supports that these biocontrol proeducts should be used pre-harvest to reduce the extent of fruit latent infection by M. laxa, and an effective post-harvest cold chain management should be implemented to delay/minimise rot development.
Dormancy enables apple trees ( Malus × domestica Borkh) to survive unfavorable weather conditions. The accumulation of cold temperatures during winter is required to release dormancy, whilst heat accumulation in spring promotes bud break and blooming. Chilling and heat requirements are used to anticipate cultivars’ suitability to local agroclimatic conditions. This review summarizes recent advances on the physiological and genetic mechanisms regulating dormancy in apple trees; and presents a compilation of available chilling and heat requirements for apple cultivars. Information shows a wide range of chilling requirements in existing cultivars. However, results reported for the same cultivar are highly variable between locations and methods used to estimate chilling; raising concerns on the suitability of using chill requirements to inform planting decisions. In the context of climate change, it is essential to ensure current knowledge on the physiological and genetic mechanisms regulating bud break guides the development of improved models that can generate better estimates of chilling and heat requirements in apple.
Drought, salinity, and increased temperatures are a threat to food security and farmers’ income, especially in Africa where around 50% of the population is involved in agriculture. These stresses, often present together in field conditions, damage crops and can reduce yields to a highly detrimental level. To tackle this issue and ensure the availability and affordability of nutritious fresh food, tolerant varieties need to be introduced in production systems. Indigenous vegetables, often overlooked and rarely researched, offer great genetic diversity and tolerance to various stress. The African eggplant, Solanum aethiopicum, is indigenous to Africa, highly nutritious, and is present in a wide range of forms, highlighting a great genetic pool. It has the potential to enhance the resilience of agricultural land and ensure food security but is under-researched. This reviews aims at understanding the state-of-the-art research on S. aethiopicum and the effects of abiotic stress on related crops. The first part introduces the African eggplant taxonomy, cultivation, and distribution to understand the current status of this crop in Africa. Then, the effects of drought, salinity, and heat on the Solanum genus are reviewed to understand the focus of the current research and up-to-date information on S. aethiopicum studies. The effects of biostimulants to enhance stress tolerance are also discussed for each stress and their combination.
Large numbers of RNA viruses and ORFans have been identified and sequenced from Agaricus bisporus, a high-value crop cultivated intensively throughout the world. Factors likely to promote viral accumulation include; (1) scale and intensity of mushroom production, (2) international trade in mushrooms, mycelium-colonised compost and inoculum, and (3) the fungal characteristic for cytoplasmic exchange. Only two viruses are associated with disease symptoms, the remainder being asymptomatic possibly demonstrating virus- host co-existence strategies. La France Disease is associated with particulate virus AbV1 consisting of nine distinct RNAs and Brown Cap Mushroom Disease is associated with non-particulate multipartite virus Agaricus bisporus virus 16 and ORFan8.
