BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF BLUEBERRY AND CRANBERRY FRUIT ROTS (VACCINIUM CORYMBOSUM L AND VACCINIUM MACROCARPON AIT.)

Control of plant diseases through the use of biological antagonists is gaining in prominence as an alternative to chemicals.
The recent successes achieved in biological control of peach brown rot and apple Penicillium and Botrytis rots prompted our research efforts aimed at biological control of blueberry and cranberry postharvest rots.
Control of Alternaria rot on blueberry and black rot on cranberry is being sought.
Bacteria, yeasts and fungi have been isolated from leaf, stem and fruit tissue of both crops.
Pure cultures of the potential antagonists are tested in vivo on blueberry and cranberry fruit.
Fruit are dipped in a suspension of a given isolate, allowed to incubate for at least two hours and then inoculated with the target pathogen at the stem scar on blueberry or at an artificial wound on cranberry.
To date excellent control of Alternaria rot has been achieved with a Pseudomonas cepacia isolate and with several unidentified isolates from blueberry.
A bacterial isolate and several Aureobasidium pullulans isolates have shown activity against cranberry black rot.

IV International Symposium on Vaccinium Culture

A.W. Stretch

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1989.241.51