Alternaria species cause various symptoms of spotting and rotting on a large number of plant species, as well as spoilage of some foods throughout the food production chain. In addition to quantitative losses, Alternaria fungi can also cause qualitative losses in the form of mycotoxin contamination. The post-harvest phytopathology of apple fruits has the task of finding solutions for controlling a number of causes of apple fruit rot during storage, among which Alternaria spp. The identification of species from the genus Alternaria based on morphological characters is not precise enough, only by molecular detection were the species that cause apple fruit rot clearly separated. Disease symptoms on apple fruits include spotting, spotting of apple leaves and fruit, which occurs during the growing season, but also fruit rot that develops after harvest, which also includes apple core rot. Species from the genus Alternaria are very metabolically active and produce over 70 different types of toxins that can contaminate the plants or foods on which they grow. For the control of Alternaria spp. on the apple, warm water treatments, the application of inorganic salts, as well as the application of beneficial microorganisms with pronounced antagonistic action against this pathogen are recommended.
Meseldžija et al. (Mon,) studied this question.