Brown rot and fire blight diseases cause enormous losses for pome and stone fruit crops. Chemical treatments generally fail without predicting the infection risk, and understanding the inoculum dynamic and its relationship with the environmental variables. In this study fire blight and brown rot diseases caused by Monilinia fructicola were respectively monitored from March until August in pear and peach orchards located in Maniace and Bronte (Catania province, Sicily, Italy) using rt-LAMP. Two different trapping methods (Gravitational spore trap and Burkard spore trap) were used to capture the airborne conidia of M. fructicola. Two risk infection models (Tate brown rot model and Monilinia fructicola infection risk criteria) were applied in the study area. A meteorological station provided the climate data needed for their evaluation. Fire blight disease was detected in July and August.
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Brown rot was observed on flowers and shoots. The gravitational spore trap was more efficient than the volumetric trapping method. A temporal heterogeneous distribution of conidia was observed during the growing season. Correlation between the inoculum presence, and the weather parameters was obtained (e.g. soil moisture: R2 = 0.82, active radiation: R2 = 0.29, etc.). M. fructicola infection risk criteria were close to predict the disease occurrence in the peach orchards.
