Abstract
Postharvest physiological disorders and parasitic storage diseases of apple fruit cause sizable economic losses and waste valuable resources. Therefore, there is a need to identify damage symptoms correctly and to understand disorder development in order to put in place better strategies to prevent fruit losses. For these reasons, a EU-funded INTERREG V-project titled 'Development of a software-supported determination system to identify and to reduce storage damage in fruit production' was started in 2016. This project involved partners from seven research institutes in five different countries. Over a 3.5-year period, information about fruit storage disorders were collected and processed into a concise databank. Storage operators, consultants, students and researchers have the opportunity to use this database resource as an encyclopaedia for on-site identification of damage symptoms detected in fruit storage rooms. Under the acronym 'Frudistor' (fruit, disorders, storage), an online platform and a web-app for smart mobile devices were established, and various journal articles were published. The information is structured into descriptions of the origin, cause, prevention, susceptible cultivars and mismatching disorders and diseases. Damage that is caused by biotic diseases also includes causative pathogen species. Additionally, standardized, high-quality images of symptoms are linked to the text. Several options to filter search results simplify disease and disorder identification. The web-app is available via www.Frudistor.de in Dutch, English, German and Italian. Translations into Spanish, Portuguese and French are planned in the near future.