Epsilon Open Archive

The Swedish fruit production is facing major problems with the profitability partly because of a significant amount fruits spoiled due to pathogens, developing during storage. It is not allowed to treat the fruit with fungicides after harvest while in recent years the number of allowed pre-harvest fungicides has decreased, and further limitations of fungicides are expected in the Baltic Sea region, where the most of the Swedish commercial fruit orchards is situated. Since pre- and post-harvest application of fungicides is totally prohibited in the organic production, problems with storage diseases become even more severe. Therefore it is necessary to develop new alternative and environmental friendly treatments, so called natural fungicides.
A number of experiments were achieved to investigate inhibition effect of different bioactive compounds (Citral, Thymol, Eugenol and Menthone) on fungal decay in apples, caused by Penicillium expansum and Neofabraea sp., (in vivo) and on the growth of their mycelium (in vitro). The treatments decreased the growth of the mycelium of both pathogens. Citral, eugenol and thymol showed greater inhibition effect than menthone. Treatments with these four bioactive compounds gave various degrees of protection against fungus in inoculated apples with the two pathogens. Thymol had the best effect.