TEN YEARS OF FIELD TRIALS ON GREY MOLD CONTROL ON STRAWBERRIES

The region of Romagna (north-central Italy) is one of Italy’s most typical areas for growing strawberries, with over 400 hectares of cultivated surface area.
Over two-thirds of this crop consists of strawberry beds in open fields in which the onset of phyto-sanitary problems depends above all on climatic trends.
In this context the development and diffusion of various pathogenic agents is more likely; these agents can lead to consistent product losses in the field as well as during the post-harvest period.
The most common pathogen is Botrytis cinerea, a grey mold agent with ubiquitous inoculation in the areas where strawberries are commonly grown.
The research reported is a synthesis of ten years (1998-2007) of field experimentation, aimed at evaluating the efficiency of various active ingredients used against B. cinerea. During the ten year period of experimentation the older generation of active ingredients was evaluated (procimidone) as well as more recent ones (pyrimethanil, mepanipirym, fenhexamide, cyprodinil-fludioxonil, and azoxystrobin), and finally the most recent phyto-iatric acquisitions (pyraclostrobin- boscalid). The most effective fungicides for controlling strawberry grey mold and limiting financial loss in all phases were pyrimethanil, cyprodinil-fludioxonil, mepanipirym and pyraclostrobin-boscalid (average effectiveness 85-95%). fenhexamide and procimidone were less effective than the aforementioned ones (average effectiveness 70-80%) and finally azoxystrobin was modestly effective (50-60%).

VI International Strawberry Symposium

G. Ceredi, L. Antoniacci, C. Montuschi, E. De Paoli, M. Mari, S. Gengotti

Fragaria × ananassa, Botrytis cinerea, disease control, fungicides

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.842.60