The efficacy of plant extracts, salt solutions, and their
combination in reducing the incidence of rotted fruit is shown
in Fig. 2. In spite of the different environmental conditions, a good
and comparable efficacy of all treatments was observed in both
years. In particular, the two salts showed similar efficiency, with an
average percentage of inhibition of about 80 and 87% for CaCl2 and
NaHCO3, respectively, as compared to the control (Table 3). These
results confirmed the effectiveness of both salts in counteracting
the development of postharvest fungal diseases on sweet cherry
(Karabulut et al., 2005; Ippolito et al., 2005). Regarding the
extracts, S. minor extract reached an inhibitory capacity compara-
ble to that of salts already at the lowest concentration (1), while
for O. crenata such result was obtained at higher concentrations
(4
in the
first year, 2
and 4
in the second year). An increase in
extract concentration produced an increase in the percentage of
inhibition, from 64 to 76% and from 79 to 89% for O. crenata and S.