Gray mold, caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea, is one of the most common and serious diseases affecting strawberries. Different fungicides are used to manage this disease but fungi can develop resistance on it. Therefore, much attention is devoted to biological
methods of control in recent years. Preparation Prestop® MIX (Verdera Oy, Finland) is available in some European countries. It contains a biocontrol agent (BCA), isolate J1446 of the fungus Gliocladium catenulatum, active against grey mold. In the project Bicopoll, a project of European transnational research cooperation project CORE Organic II, we are monitoring the effectiveness of BCA spreading on strawberry flowers by bees and checking
for residues of BSA in bee products (honey, pollen). For this purpose, we developed a new, BCA specific real time PCR, which allows us to detect BCA in different samples and quantify it. In the early stages of development, we focused on the development of DNA extraction
methods from product Prestop® MIX
