A Review on Prospects of Pre-harvest Application of Bioagents in Managing Post-Harvest Diseases of Horticultural Crops

The reduction of post-harvest food losses is a critical component of ensuring future global food security. For controlling post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables biocontrol measures play an important role in ensuring an effective and safe alternatives to synthetic chemicals. Biological control of preand postharvest diseases has been one of the most extensively studied alternatives and appears to be a viable technology. Post-harvest application of biocontrol agents has been reported since very early to control post-harvest diseases, but it has one major limitation that it cannot control the latent infection that starts from the field itself during the flowering stage, fruit maturity stage, wounds develop at harvesting and transporting the produce. For these pre-harvest applications of biocontrol agents can be an appropriate strategy for fruits and vegetables that subject to several ways of damage in post-harvest handling till