Postharvest Fungi of Lowbush Blueberry Fruit. D. H. Lambert, Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, University of Maine, Orono 04469. . Plant Dis. 74:285-287. Accepted for publication 30 October 1989. Copyright 1990 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/PD-74-0285.

The major fungi isolated from 50 processor or market samples of lowbush blueberry fruit were Botrytis cinerea (3.7%), Glomerella cingulata (3.0%), Gloeosporium minus (2.5%), Alternaria spp. (1.0%), and Penicillium spp. (0.8%). Gloeosporium, an incitant of leaf spots, stem cankers, and blossom-end rot on highbush blueberries, has not previously been reported as a disease of lowbush blueberry. The incidence of Glomerella and Alternaria, but not of Botrytis and Gloeosporium, was significantly higher in fields pruned by mowing than in those pruned by burning. Heat-tolerant fungi isolated included Eupenicillium lapidosum, another sclerotial Eupenicillium sp., Talaromyces striatus, an isolate resembling Humicola sp., and two unidentified species.