(Morgan and Michailides, 2004). In addition, there were reports
from South Africa of ‘soft tissue breakdown’ in ‘Redglobe’ grapes
(Witbooi and Fourie, 2002) with uncharacterized pathogens, and in
California where the same terminology was applied to decay that
started in the vineyards and continued in storage (Hashim-Buckey
et al., 2008).
Our objective was to determine if the internal decay symptoms
resulted from latent or external inoculum of B. cinerea or another
pathogen. This question was addressed by external disinfection
of clusters of ‘Scalotta’ grape by dipping in ethanol (Lichter et al.,
2002; Gabler et al., 2004) and by storage under an atmosphere that
restricted external growth of the pathogen during storage.