3. Results and discussion
The incidence of infection, by the three pathogens collectively,was diminished by individual hot water or irradiation treatment for both MI2 and MI4 fruits and was radically reduced when the
combined treatment was applied to MI2 fruits. The impact of the combined treatment on MI4 fruits was very much less, indicating a large effect of maturity on the outcome of the combined treatment (Table 1). The dramatic benefit of the combined treatment on MI2 fruits with respect to disease severity continued to give values within the acceptable range for commercial trading after 28 days storage. This provided an advantage in overall shelf life of some 13 days when compared to control material. The individual treatments also offered improvements in shelf life but the quality of the fruits was in the lower category of quality, represented by 5–25% disease severity (Table 1). These data show clear benefits of the combined treatment, particularly for the fruits at the earlier maturity stage, and with the benefits of a low level of gamma