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.