For the epidemiologist, latency is the period from infection until the
infected tissue becomes infectious, “spore-to-spore” (Vanderplank,
1963), but it generally has come to mean a period of pathogen
quiescence (Verhoeff, 1974), sometimes even extended to cover the time when microorganisms lie quiescent on the host surface before
infection occurs. In managing diseases of horticultural crops, pathogen
quiescence has important implications in timing prophylaxis, the
reduction of stresses that trigger the transition of quiescence to
aggression, and managing the harvested crop to prolong quiescence to
the point at which yield is no longer affected