Fungal storage rots like blue mould, grey mould, bull’s eye rot, bitter rot and brown rot destroy large amounts of the harvested apple crop around the world. Application of fungicides is nowadays severely restricted in many countries and production systems, and these problems are therefore likely to increase. Considerable variation among apple cultivars in resistance/susceptibility has been reported, suggesting that efficient defence mechanisms can be selected for and used in plant breeding. These are, however, likely to vary between pathogens, since some fungi are mainly wound-mediated while others attack through lenticels or by infecting blossoms. Since mature fruits are considerably more susceptible than immature fruits, mechanisms involving fruit-ripening processes are likely to play an important role. Significant associations have been detected between the susceptibility to rots in harvested fruit and various fruit maturation-related traits like ripening time, fruit firmness at harvest and rate of fruit softening during storage, as well as fruit biochemical contents like acidity, sugars and polyphenols. Some sources of resistance to blue mould have been described, but more research is needed on the development of spore inoculation methods that produce reproducible data and can be used for large screenings, especially for lenticel-infecting fungi.

Pome fruit genetic resources collections constitute a highly valuable resource not only for fruit breeding but also for direct use by nurseries, growers, and home gardeners. In order to use these resources efficiently and sustainably, reliable evaluation data on fruit and tree characteristics must be generated. Here we focus on pome fruit genetic resources evaluated phenotypically and genotypically for susceptibility to apple scab (Venturia inaequalis), powdery mildew (Podosphaera leucotricha), fire blight (Erwinia amylovora), pear rust (Gymnosporangium sabinae) and storage diseases (e.g., Penicillium expansum). Examples are presented of several ongoing projects throughout Europe, with the aim to evaluate fruit genetic resources for disease susceptibility and potential use in breeding and for commercial use. The COST action 864 has fostered international cooperation in the evaluation of pome fruit genetic resources, and some of these evaluations therefore involve research groups from several of the participating countries.