Ripe rot was commonly found in overripe kiwifruits (Actinidia deliciosa) during a disease survey conducted in Jeju and Jeonnam provinces in Korea in 1999. While the disease did not manifest any clear external symptoms on kiwifruits, it caused portion of the fruit surface to collapse. Watersoaked flesh tissue could be seen on the sunken part when the skin of the collapsed portion was peeled off. The milky internal symptom with dark green margin developed concentrically as the fruit ripened. A species of Botryosphaeria was consistently isolated from lesions showing typical symptoms of ripe rot on kiwifruit, and its pathogenicity was confirmed by artificial inoculation test on healthy kiwifruits. The fungus was also pathogenic to apple and pear. The mycological characteristics of the fungus were consistent with those of Botryosphaeria dothidea. This is the first report on the detailed mycological characteristics of the causal organism of post-harvest ripe rot of kiwifruit in Korea.
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Koh et al. (2003) studied this question.