Storage fungi of cabbage and their control

Authors

• Risto Tahvonen Department of Plant Pathology, University of Helsinki, SF-00710 Helsinki 71, Finland

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23986/afsci.72070

Abstract

Botrytis cinerea Pers. ex Fr. was found in 40—100 %, in most cases 60—80 %, of the stored cabbages examined during 1975—80. The correlation between the B. cinerea—% and the trimming losses was highly significant when storage lasted for more than 5 months. The trimming losses in infected cabbage lots were 30—50%, while in healthy lots they were only 10—20 %. The numbers of B. cinerea remained constant on the same lots, irrespective of the duration of storage. The fungus caused a considerable amount of spoilage at rather low storage temperatures of—0.5—0°C. Alternaria brassicicola (Schw.) Wiltshire, Plenodomus lingam (Tode ex Fr.) Höhnel, Typhula brassicae (Berg, ex Fr.) Vang, Whetzelinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) Korf & Dumont, and an otherwise unidentified fungus, which presumably belonged to the Basidiomycetes and was only found growing on living cabbages, were present in small numbers or else were significant pathogens in individual stores in certain years only. Spraying with benomyl or thiophanatemethyl one or two weeks before harvesting decreased to a highly significant degree the numbers of B. cinerea on the cabbages, the commercial quality increasing by 8—25 %. Spraying during the growing season did not affect the numbers of any of the other storage pathogens.