Pacific Pests, Pathogens and Weeds - Online edition

Pacific Pests, Pathogens, Weeds & Pesticides

Breadfruit Phytophthora fruit rot (130)


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Summary
  • Worldwide distribution. On breadfruit, but also cocoa and coconut, papaya, rubber, and many more. An important disease.
  • A water mould, an oomycete, not a fungus. Spores are splashed by rain from soil onto lower fruit; later, spores on fruit spread in wind-driven rain. The spores are lemon shaped, and can be seen with a lens.
  • Cultural control: prune lower branches to prevent fruit infection; 'top' trees starting when young, keeping them between 3-4 m to facilitate management of the disease; apply mulch to prevent rain splash of spores onto lower fruit; avoid susceptible varieties (e.g., Puou in Samoa).
  •  Chemical control: protectants - copper, chlorothalonil, mancozeb; systemics – metalaxyl, phosphorous acid.
Common Name

Breadfruit rot

Scientific Name

Phytophthora palmivora


AUTHOR Grahame Jackson
Information from (including Photo 1) Gerlach WWP (1988) Plant diseases of Western Samoa. Samoan German Crop Protection Project, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) Gmbh, Germany.

Produced with support from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research under project PC/2010/090: Strengthening integrated crop management research in the Pacific Islands in support of sustainable intensification of high-value crop production, implemented by the University of Queensland and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

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