Guiding Disease Management of Small Fruit Crops Towards A Sustainable Future.

The project aims to enhance environmental and economic sustainability of small fruit crops by diversifying disease control options while improving fruit quantity and quality. To achieve this, a better understanding of the biology of major fruit pathogens is needed to optimize existing disease control methods. Alternatives to current chemical fungicides, such as the use of cultivar resistance, and cultural and biological control methods need to be further explored. The integration of the most effective disease control options and the utility of disease scouting and forecasting need further investigation as well. The broad objectives of the project are to:1) Improve diagnosis of diseases and assessment of losses on small fruit crops2) Elucidate the biology and population characteristics of small fruit pathogens3) Study the effects of environmental factors and fungicides on small fruit pathogens4) Evaluate the efficacy of integrated disease management methods