ABSTRACT
Strawberries are one of the most delicate and soft fruits, and require very specific growing environments. Variations in growing conditions and field stresses favour the prevalence of a variety of fungi, bacteria, viruses and virus-like organisms causing diseases, which adversely affect growth, yield and fruit quality of strawberries. Being a crop having a very short duration of fruit development, management of diseases by using only synthetic chemicals is hazardous to human health and environment. This calls for a paradigm shift, favouring the integrated management of diseases to minimize risk with respect to food safety and environmental hazards as discussed in this chapter.
