As soon as diseased fruit appears, it is important to remove them to reduce spread of the disease. Like bitter and black rot, it is a rapidly developing soft rot. Eliminating dead wood, including current season's fire blighted twigs, and avoiding stub cuts is important for disease prevention. Make pruning cuts properly, just outside of the bark ridge and collar tissue. Cutting there promotes rapid wound closure and healing.
Sooty blotch produces olive green to black lesions on mature fruit.
Flyspeck is named for the appearance of its lesions. Colonies of the fungus are have up to 50 small, shiny black fungal structures grouped irregularly or circularly on the fruit. These diseases grow only on the surface of the fruit and do not cause rots. Fungicides are necessary to control both of these diseases. Some removal of the lesions after harvest can be obtained by soaking fruit for seven minutes in a 500 ppm solution of chlorine.