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The diseases which develop on harvested parts of the plants like seeds, fruits are known as post-harvest diseases. Pathogen attack may take place during harvesting and subsequent handling, storage, marketing, and after consumer purchase. The plant parts may get infected in the field, but expression of symptoms may take place later, at any stage before final consumption. The postharvest diseases that cause spoilage of both durable and perishable commodities are widespread. Losses inflicted throughout the supply chain due to pathogen-induced diseases are the major component of food wastage and may occur at any time from preharvest to consumption. The capability of a microorganism to initiate postharvest diseases, as well as its final outcome, depend on a number of factors that can conveniently be associated with, microorganism, the host and/or the environment. The integrative strategies for control of postharvest diseases include effectively inhibiting pathogens growth, enhancing resistance of hosts and improving environmental conditions resulting favourable to the host and unfavourable to the pathogen growth. The strategies that can directly act upon the microbial pathogens may be integrated as, physical + chemical, physical+ biocontrol, biocontrol + chemical and resistance+ biocontrol + physical + chemical methods. The possibility of integrating the different effective strategies to achieve higher level of control of postharvest pathogens and to minimize or replace the use of synthetic fungicides has to be explored in certain host–pathogen systems.
Keywords: Temperate fruits, Post-harvest, Diseases, Pathogens, Factors, Management.