Fruit rots

Penicillium spp.

While Penicillium has a wide and variable host range, the symptoms are very similar across all hosts. With a Penicillium infection, initial infected spots appear post harvest while fruit is in storage, and a sharp visible contrast can be seen between diseased and healthy tissue. The initial infected spots that appear will be light brownish in color, and the tissue beneath these brown spots will be soft and mushy, and have a watery consistency. The initial infection sites often occur in injured areas of the fruit, somewhere that has been punctured, bruised or otherwise injured. Blue to bluish green spore masses will appear on the infected fruit, starting with the older lesions. These spore masses will initially appear as white mycelium on the surface of the infected fruit, then turn blue to bluish green in color. Fruit affected by Penicillium can be expected to have an earthy, musty odor to it. Lesions resulting from wounds can be expected to be one to one and a quarter inches in diameter eight to ten weeks after infection if kept under cold storage conditions.

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