Enhancing Microbial Control Agents in Managing Postharvest Diseases

The increasing pressure and advocacies of various sectors to reduce or eliminate the use of synthetic chemicals for control of postharvest diseases in fresh agricultural produce paved way to seek for alternatives that are acceptable to consumers environment friendly and less likely to produce pathogen resistance. Finding alternatives to the use of synthetic fungicides for postharvest disease management such as biological control agents is increasingly investigated worldwide. Based on bacteria or fungi we made researches on the use of microbial antagonists or microbial control agents (MCAs) as banana postharvest protocol under commercial condition. MCA as sole postharvest treatment for banana however was inferior in terms of efficacy in managing postharvest diseases and maintaining the overall quality of fruit as compared with synthetic fungicides. Hence in this book improving the efficacy of MCA by combining with other nonchemical control approaches such as generally recognized as safe (GRAS) compound or hot water treatment (HWT) is discussed.