Developing a risk prediction model for Mucor and Rhizopus in strawberry
Title: Predicting strawberry fruit infection by Mucor and Rhizopus using climatic conditions and pathogen inoculum levels
Funder: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Industry partner: Berry Gardens Growers
Term: June 2023 to November 2023
Project leader: Xiangming Xu
The incidence of soft rots in protected strawberry, caused by Mucor and Rhizopus species has increased in recent years, particularly in the latter half of the season, from July until October. While infection by Botrytis cinerea can occur from the flowering stage and throughout fruit development, Mucor and Rhizopus have been shown only to infect white and ripe fruits and symptoms develop much more quickly, sometimes within four days of infection occurring. If growers and agronomists were able to predict when infection might occur, changes to crop management could be implemented at the optimum time to reduce the impact of the pathogens.
The project
A previous Innovate UK project, involving Berry Gardens Growers, Mologic and NIAB scientists, set about developing models to predict the risk of strawberry infection by Mucor and Rhizopus, but further data is still need to complete, validate and finalise the model for use in practice. This new project aims to obtain further data on the incidence of Mucor and Rhizopus, weather conditions and the level of airborne inoculum within a specific period in commercial strawberry crops, and to develop and validate predictive models.