Exploitation of natural products as an alternative strategy to control postharvest fungal rotting of fruit and vegetables

Chemical fungicides provide the primary means for controlling postharvest fungal decay of fruit and vegetables. Continuous use of fungicides has faced two major obstacles-increasing public concern regarding contamination of perishables with fungicidal residues, and proliferation of resistance in the pathogen populations. The ultimate aim of recent research in this area has been the development and evaluation of various alternative control strategies to reduce dependency on synthetic fungicides. Several non-chemical treatments have been proposed for fungal decay control. Although these approaches have been shown to reduce postharvest rots of fruit and vegetables, each has limitations that can affect their commercial applicability. When used as stand-alone treatments, none of the non-chemical control methods has been clearly shown to offer a consistently economic level of disease control that warrants acceptance as an alternative to synthetic fungicides. Recently, the exploitation of natural products to control decay and prolong storage life of perishables has received more and more attention. Biologically active natural products have the potential to replace synthetic fungicides. This review deals with exploitation of some natural products such as flavour compounds, acetic acid, jasmonates, glucosinolates, propolis, fusapyrone and deoxyfusapyrone, chitosan, essential oils and plant extracts for the management of fungal rotting of fruit and vegetables, thereby prolonging shelf life. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.