The brown rot fungus Monilinia fructicola is economically the most important pathogen for stone fruit trees. The fungus infects since blossoming and may remain latent in the fruits and manifest symptoms during harvest and postharvest. The present study aimed at evaluating methodologies to detect latent infections in developing fruits for different cultivars of stone fruit trees. Eight cultivars of stone fruit trees were chosen in order to evaluate latent infections of M. fructicola. For that purpose, 30 fruits of each cultivar were collected and separated into two batches of 15 fruits. One of them was subject to immersion for two minutes in a sequence of ethanol solution 70%, later, sodium hypochlorite 2%, and finally washed in sterilized water. The treatment for the second batch of fruits was similar to the first one, adding paraquat solution 2% (paraquat - 200g L-1, Gramocil-SC) after the hypochlorite. After the treatments, the fruits were laid in humid chamber in plastic packages containing humid filter paper at room temperature. The evaluation of the incidence of the disease was carried out every 48 hours for 10 days. The latent infections were detected in the majority of the cultivars evaluated with the two methods, mainly in the fruits closer to maturation. The treatment in which herbicide was used increased the detection of brown rot in the plum cultivars Reubennel and Harry Pickstone. For the peaches in cultivar BR-3, the two methods favored the detection; however, in the cultivars Chimarrita and Vila Nova there was higher detection of latent infection when paraquat was not utilized.
brown rot; latency; peach; plum
