Modern agriculture demands large-scale production and distribution of high-quality produce. Successful marketing depends on delivering produce of the highest quality to consumers. With increased emphasis on uniformity of product appearance and quality - as well as on automated packing, shipment to more distant markets, and longer storage - it has become increasingly important to minimize losses caused by insects, diseases, and filamentous fungi, yeasts, and bacteria, while maintaining or even increasing food safety standards.

Chapters cover fruit maturity and susceptibility to pathogen infection, the infection process, methods of decay management, postharvest diseases of select vegetables and deciduous and subtropical fruit, and insect control.