Post-Harvest Pathogens

Plant pathogenic fungi and bacteria pose a significant threat to global commercial crop production, leading to increased production costs and reduced crop yield. In our study, we investigated the antimicrobial efficacy of silver hydrogen peroxide (Peroxsil®) against seven common postharvest pathogens: Alternaria alternata, Botrytis cinerea, Monilinialaxa, Galactomyces candidum var. citri-aurantii, Penicillium digitatum, Penicillium italicum, and Penicillium expansum under controlled in vitro conditions.

Table - 1

Peroxsil® demonstrated an impressive 100% kill rate for five out of the seven tested spores. We set the contact time at 5 minutes, reflecting the typical duration that fruits or vegetables spend in post-harvest disinfecting baths.
In comparison, chlorine as calcium hypochlorite, exhibited effectiveness against six out of the seven tested spores. When compared to chlorine’s performance against Alternaria alternata, Peroxsil® achieved an 84% kill rate, while chlorine managed only 41%.
Conversely, for P. expansum, Peroxsil® achieved an 83% kill rate, whereas chlorine achieved 100%. Importantly, the effective doses of Peroxsil® (4800 ppm) did not exhibit any phytotoxicity symptoms in plants.

Conclusion: The 0.4% Peroxsil® concentration is very conservative and further studies need to be carried out at concentrations of 0.6% and 0.8% which should result in a 100% efficacy rate against Alternaria alternata and P. expansum.

Studies have confirmed that Peroxsil® at concentrations of 1%-2% are highly effective against most pathogenic microorganisms and are still below the threshold of plant and fruit damage as well as having no residual restrictions from international regulatory organisations.

Contact our offices for the full trial details.