despite the profusion of flowers that develop on olive trees, only a few set fruit during the growing season and only about 1-2% of the fruit remains on the trees at maturity. therefore, to maximize fruit set and yield, it is important for growers to understand the cross-compatibility between cultivars when planning to establish an olive orchard. this study was carried out in shiraz, fars provi...

Anthracnose caused by the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum gloeosporioides causes serious post harvest losses of avocado fruit worldwide. Typically, infections are initiated in the field on unripe fruit, but remain quiescent as germinated appressoria until fruit ripening. Over the past two decades pepper spot, a pre-harvest disease also caused by C. gloeosporioides, has been reported on 'Hass' av...

Erwinia amylovora is a gram-negative phytopathogen that causes fire blight of pome fruit and related members of the family Rosaceae. We sequenced the putative autoinducer-2 (AI-2) synthase gene luxS from E. amylovora. Diversity analysis indicated that this gene is extremely conserved among E. amylovora strains. Quorum sensing mediated by LuxS has been implicated in coordinated gene expression, ...

The oriental fruit moth Grapholita molesta is one of the major pests of stone and pome fruit species in Brazil. Here, we applied 1226 SNPs obtained by genotyping-by-sequencing to test whether host species associations or other factors such as geographic distance structured populations of this pest. Populations from the main areas of occurrence of G. molesta were sampled principally from peach a...

BACKGROUND The oriental fruit moth, Grapholita molesta, is an extremely important oligophagous pest species of stone and pome fruits throughout the world. As a host-switching species, adult moths, especially females, depend on olfactory cues to a large extent in locating host plants, finding mates, and selecting oviposition sites. The identification of olfactory genes can facilitate investigati...

Losses from postharvest fruit diseases range from 1 to 20 percent in the United States, depending on the commodity. The application of fungicides to fruits after harvest to reduce decay has been increasingly curtailed by the development of pathogen resistance to many key fungicides, the lack of replacement fungicides, negative public perception regarding the safety of pesticides and consequent ...

Answering the fundamental ecological question of what determines animal abundance has become critical with the accelerating need for informed management plans for endangered species. A major difficulty in testing general hypotheses to account for variation in abundance is that periods of food scarcity, which may be responsible for limiting population size, occur on a superannual basis. Research...

Effects of water stress on fruit fresh and dry weights were investigated in peach trees, Prunus persica (L.) Batsch., with varying crop loads: light, moderate and heavy. In well-watered controls, tree water status was independent of crop load. In trees receiving reduced irrigation, the degree of water stress increased with increasing crop load. Water stress induced fruit fresh weight reductions...