番茄脐腐病Tomato disorder Blossom End Rot (BER).docVIP

Tomato disorder: Blossom End Rot (BER) Introduction Tomato has gradually become one of the most popular vegetables in the world. The global production of the tomato has reached to 145 million tons and it has shown a rising trend in recent years (Barickman,2014). The tomato production area keeps increasing year by year. However, because of the climate change stress and environmental pressure, the sensitivity of tomato limits the production area expansion as well (Jong et al., 2009). Diseases and disorders can definitely restrict the tomato yield. If there is no proper protective measures, some diseases like Blossom-End Rot, Late Blight and Physiological Leaf Roll/Curl can completely destroy the whole plant within two or three weeks’ time. Blossom-End Rot is a common physiological tomato disorder which can result in over 50% losses of the tomato production once the Blossom-End Rot spreads to the whole production site and without a promptly?effective?treatment (Ohlson et al., 2015). In the following, the Blossom-End Rot will be detailed discussed respectively in three parts: symptoms, causes and management. Symptoms The incipient stage of Blossom End Rot (BER) often appears a small lesions area at the blossom end of the immature fruit. Soon after, the tiny lesions area starts to enlarge and turn to be watery and sunken. Finally, the affected tissue becomes a dark brown leathery necrosis placenta (Robbins, 1937; van Goor, 1968). Theoretically, at any period of the fruit development, BER can be successfully induced. However, in practice, the incidence of BER normally happens around the second week after the flowering period. The tomatoes with BER are relatively precocious and the fruits are normally smaller than healthy ones (DeKock et al., 1979). The basal part of the fruits may be most severely affected by the BER. After half part of the fruit is completely infected by the BER, the fruit may become concave and lead to a complete collapse destruction. In addition, there