LAUSR

Citriculture is the branch of fruit farming that has stood out worldwide and leads to high production of citros fruit. It was introduced in Brazil when the country was a Portuguese colony and, since then, it has been very important to consumption habits of its population. However, the country only became a global leader in orange production after 1960 and has been the world’s main producer of this fruit since the mid 80’s (Couto & Canniatti-Brazaca, 2010). Despite the high production of tropical fruit, there are also many losses, which correspond to 30% of total production, on average. Postharvest losses may be the result of several causes, such as diseases caused by different types of fungi (Dantas et al., 2003).