ID Gallery: Mucor Rot
Mucor Rot of Apple and Pear
Mucor rot can cause significant losses of fruit, but is generally not a major problem, when good harvest management and water sanitation practices at packing are implemented.
For more information about mucor rot and it’s management visit our page Mucor Rot Postharvest Disease.
Click on images below to to full size.
Photo credits to Achour Amiri and Keith van den Broek, WSU TFREC, unless otherwise noted.
Mucor rot (Mucor piriformis) on a Golden Delicious apple showing very soft, juicy, decayed tissue with a sharp margin. Mucor rot decay often has a sweet odor. Photo: CL Xiao, USDA-ARS.
Mucor rot on the side of a Pink Lady apple. Photo: TJ Mullinex, Good Fruit Grower.
Early mucor symptoms starting from a wound on Granny Smith. Note the white mycelium emerging.
Advanced Mucor rot on a Fuji apple. Entire fruit is extremely soft and juicy. Notice dark sporangia on fruit surface.
Cross section of Mucor rot on a Fuji apple. Note juicy tissue easily separated from healthy tissue.
Cross section of Mucor rot on a Granny Smith apple. Note juicy-watery tissue and white sporangiophores emerging from the calyx-end.
Actively growing Mucor infection on Granny Smith apple under high humidity causing the emergence of fuzzy-white sporangiophores.
Advanced late-stage Mucor infection on Granny Smith.
Early stage infection of Mucor rot starting from a wounded area around the stem-end on d’ Anjou pear. Photo: CL Xioa, USDA-ARS.
Advanced stage of Mucor rot originating from stem infection on a d’Anjou pear fruit; gray mycelium with dark sporangia. Photo: CL Xiao, USDA-ARS.
Stem-end Mucor infection carrying sporangiophores and black sporangia on Bartlett pear.
Advanced stage of Mucor rot on a d’Anjou pear fruit; gray mycelium with dark sporangia. Photo: CL Xiao, USDA-ARS.
Abundant fuzzy sporangiophores (mycelium) carrying black sporangia.