Articles
Practical experience with ozone in fruit tree storage
Article number
1458_35
Pages
267 – 272
Language
English
Abstract
The ongoing restriction on pesticide use in Europe presents new challenges to many growing methods and processes in fruit tree nursery production.
Among other things, the storage of trees in cold stores could become problematic with a decreasing portfolio of available active ingredients.
Therefore, it is necessary to seek an alternative non-pesticide-based solution to mitigate the potential tree damage resulting from disease development.
The use of ozone (O3) is considered one potential solution.
The objective of our experiment was to test the efficiency of air ozone and the feasibility of using this technique in real conditions.
The trees were stored for 4 months in a cold store at 1°C and 95-100% relative humidity.
Two boxes were used.
The first one was ozonized to 0.5 ppm O3. The second one was with an ambient atmosphere.
We assessed the impact of ozone on the visible development of fungi mycelium at the end of storage and the vitality of the trees after planting.
The use of ozone significantly decreased the development of mycelium on tree surfaces.
The use of ozone did not decrease the vitality of the trees.
We did not encounter any practical complications that would render the use of ozone impractical for fruit tree storage.
Thus, we consider it a promising method.
Among other things, the storage of trees in cold stores could become problematic with a decreasing portfolio of available active ingredients.
Therefore, it is necessary to seek an alternative non-pesticide-based solution to mitigate the potential tree damage resulting from disease development.
The use of ozone (O3) is considered one potential solution.
The objective of our experiment was to test the efficiency of air ozone and the feasibility of using this technique in real conditions.
The trees were stored for 4 months in a cold store at 1°C and 95-100% relative humidity.
Two boxes were used.
The first one was ozonized to 0.5 ppm O3. The second one was with an ambient atmosphere.
We assessed the impact of ozone on the visible development of fungi mycelium at the end of storage and the vitality of the trees after planting.
The use of ozone significantly decreased the development of mycelium on tree surfaces.
The use of ozone did not decrease the vitality of the trees.
We did not encounter any practical complications that would render the use of ozone impractical for fruit tree storage.
Thus, we consider it a promising method.
Authors
L. Nývlt, K. Scháňková, L. Laňar, M. Kracíková, M. Varga
Keywords
nursery, store, fungi, cold room, disease, atmosphere
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