Abstract
The introduction of transplants cryptically infected with causal agents of major diseases represents an acute challenge to strawberry growers. Neopestalotiopsis sp., responsible for Pestalotia leaf spot (PLS) and Pestalotia fruit rot (PFR), was first introduced in Florida during the 2017 to 2018 strawberry season through infected nursery material. In this study, we demonstrated that Neopestalotiopsis sp. spores did not survive temperatures of 44, 48, 52, and 56°C after 240, 60, 10, and 5 min of exposure, respectively. The thermotherapy protocol effectively reduced the inoculum of Neopestalotiopsis sp. on naturally infected and artificially inoculated strawberry transplants. Before planting, naturally infected plants and inoculated and noninoculated transplants were exposed to the thermotherapy protocol. A standard area diagram set was developed and validated to estimate the severity of PLS, improving the accuracy, precision, and reliability of ratings. On naturally infected plants, thermotherapy reduced disease incidence and severity by 49.7 to 68.8% and 82.2 to 94.6%, respectively. On artificially inoculated plants, incidence was not different between treatments, but it was reduced by 52.5% on the heat-treated, inoculated transplants. Disease severity was reduced during both seasons by 82.2 to 94.6% and 50.3 to 86.8% on heat-treated transplants that were naturally infected and inoculated, respectively. Additionally, fruit were evaluated weekly from December to mid-January for early-season yield and PFR incidence. No significant differences were observed among treatments for incidence on fruit nor for early-season yield. Thermotherapy reduced the Neopestalotiopsis sp. inoculum and could be integrated into disease management programs to reduce cryptic infections in strawberry transplants for commercial production. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record, shown for indexing and research. Copyright remains with the authors or the publisher. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 11
Claim · model-written summary
Neopestalotiopsis spores failed to survive four temperature and exposure combinations.
- Taxon
- Strawberry
_single2.jpg?width=60)
Fragaria ×ananassat0 - Interactor
- Neopestalotiopsis sp.Neopestalotiopsise0pathogen
- Outcome
- Neopestalotiopsis sp. spores did not survivee0
- Qualifier
- 44, 48, 52, and 56°C after 240, 60, 10, and 5 mine0
Not reportedDirection
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
_single2.jpg?width=500)
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“Neopestalotiopsis sp. spores did not survive temperatures of 44, 48, 52, and 56°C after 240, 60, 10, and 5 min of exposure, respectively.”
Claim · model-written summary
Thermotherapy reduced Neopestalotiopsis inoculum on strawberry transplants.
- Taxon
- strawberryFragaria ×ananassae0
- Treatment
- thermotherapy protocole0
- Interactor
- Neopestalotiopsis sp.Neopestalotiopsise0pathogen
- Outcome
- inoculum of Neopestalotiopsis sp.e0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“thermotherapy protocol effectively reduced the inoculum of Neopestalotiopsis sp. on naturally infected and artificially inoculated strawberry transplants”
Claim · model-written summary
A standard area diagram improved accuracy, precision, and reliability of PLS severity ratings.
- Taxon
- StrawberryFragaria ×ananassat0
- Outcome
- accuracy, precision, and reliability of ratingse0
- Direction
- improvinge0
Not reportedComparatorValue
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“A standard area diagram set was developed and validated to estimate the severity of PLS, improving the accuracy, precision, and reliability of ratings.”
Claim · model-written summary
Thermotherapy reduced PLS incidence on naturally infected strawberry plants by 49.7 to 68.8%.
- Taxon
- StrawberryFragaria ×ananassat0
- Treatment
- thermotherapye0
- Outcome
- disease incidencee0
- Direction
- reducede0
- Value
- 49.7 to 68.8%e0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“On naturally infected plants, thermotherapy reduced disease incidence and severity by 49.7 to 68.8% and 82.2 to 94.6%, respectively.”
Claim · model-written summary
Thermotherapy reduced PLS severity on naturally infected strawberry plants by 82.2 to 94.6%.
- Taxon
- StrawberryFragaria ×ananassat0
- Treatment
- thermotherapye0
- Outcome
- severitye0
- Direction
- reducede0
- Value
- 82.2 to 94.6%e0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“On naturally infected plants, thermotherapy reduced disease incidence and severity by 49.7 to 68.8% and 82.2 to 94.6%, respectively.”
Claim · model-written summary
On artificially inoculated strawberry plants, incidence was not different between treatments.
- Taxon
- StrawberryFragaria ×ananassat0
- Treatment
- artificially inoculatede0
- Outcome
- incidencee0
- Direction
- not differente0
- Comparator
- between treatmentse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“On artificially inoculated plants, incidence was not different between treatments”
Claim · model-written summary
On heat-treated inoculated strawberry transplants, disease incidence was reduced by 52.5%.
- Taxon
- StrawberryFragaria ×ananassat0
- Treatment
- heat-treated, inoculated transplantse0
- Outcome
- incidencee1
- Direction
- reducede0
- Value
- 52.5%e0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“it was reduced by 52.5% on the heat-treated, inoculated transplants”
e1“On artificially inoculated plants, incidence was not different between treatments”
Claim · model-written summary
Thermotherapy reduced PLS severity on artificially inoculated strawberry transplants by 50.3 to 86.8%.
- Taxon
- StrawberryFragaria ×ananassat0
- Treatment
- heat-treated transplantse0
- Outcome
- Disease severitye0
- Direction
- reducede0
- Value
- 50.3 to 86.8%e0
- Qualifier
- inoculatede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“Disease severity was reduced during both seasons by 82.2 to 94.6% and 50.3 to 86.8% on heat-treated transplants that were naturally infected and inoculated, respectively.”
Claim · model-written summary
Fruit PFR incidence did not differ significantly among thermotherapy treatments.
- Taxon
- StrawberryFragaria ×ananassat0
- Treatment
- Thermotherapye1
- Outcome
- incidence on fruite0
- Direction
- No significant differencese0
- Comparator
- among treatmentse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“No significant differences were observed among treatments for incidence on fruit nor for early-season yield.”
e1“Thermotherapy reduced the Neopestalotiopsis sp. inoculum”
Claim · model-written summary
Early-season strawberry yield did not differ significantly among treatments.
- Taxon
- StrawberryFragaria ×ananassat0
- Treatment
- Thermotherapye1
- Outcome
- early-season yielde0
- Direction
- No significant differencese0
- Comparator
- among treatmentse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
t0“Strawberry Transplants”
e0“No significant differences were observed among treatments for incidence on fruit nor for early-season yield.”
e1“Thermotherapy reduced the Neopestalotiopsis sp. inoculum”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors suggest integrating thermotherapy into strawberry disease management to reduce cryptic infections.
- Taxon
- strawberryFragaria ×ananassae0
- Outcome
- could be integrated into disease management programs to reduce cryptic infectionse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Thermotherapy reduced the Neopestalotiopsis sp. inoculum and could be integrated into disease management programs to reduce cryptic infections in strawberry transplants for commercial production.”
The same questions in other papers
transplanting · disease · Fragaria x ananassa (strawberry)Positive and negative results
2 papers in the same direction as this paper · 1 in the opposite direction
- no effect
- positive
- positive
inoculation · disease · Fragaria x ananassa (strawberry)Positive and negative results
32 papers in the same direction as this paper · 39 in the opposite direction
- negative
- positive
- negative
68 papers more in this group
See all 72 papers →heat · disease · Fragaria x ananassa (strawberry)Results agree
17 papers in the same direction as this paper
- positive
- positive
- positive
14 papers more in this group
See all 18 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.