Heat Treatment for Control of Postharvest Diseases and Insect Pests of Fruits

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Abstract
Heat treatments have been used to control fungal diseases and insect infestation of fruit for many years. However, with the development of effective fungicides and insecticides, especially fumigants, which could be applied cheaply and easily, interest in heat treatments waned. Stringent short- and long-term safety studies imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made retention of registration for many agricultural chemicals increasingly difficult. Some of the fumigants, such as ethylene dibromide, which were developed and used to control insects during the past 20 to 30 years, are no longer registered; others may lose registration in the future. These regulatory restrictions also increase the cost of developing new chemical fumigants and, therefore, interest in heat disinfestation has been revived (5).

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