Common Diseases in Pineapple and Their Management

Pineapple (Ananas comosus L. Merr) is a tropical fruit with sweet taste, vibrant tropical flavour, and contains enormous health benefits. Currently, pineapple is ranked as the second in the list of commercial tropical fruits for worldwide production after mangoes. Like other crops, pineapple is prone to various diseases caused by different groups of plant pathogens. Several common pineapple diseases have been reported particularly in Malaysia and other countries including bacterial and fungal heart rots, fruit collapse, butt and black rots, fruitlet core rot, internal black spot, fusariosis, mealybug wilt-associated virus, yeasty, stem end rot, leaf spot disease, and parasitic nematodes–associated disease. These diseases can cause huge losses to pineapple production by reducing quantity and quality of fruit. Knowledge on the causal pathogen, disease symptoms and dissemination of pathogen in pineapple farms are important to prevent and control these diseases. Therefore, this chapter presents more than 10 common diseases in pineapple with the descriptions of causal pathogen and symptoms, as well as the available control methods to manage the diseases.