**3. Hazardous affects of synthetic fungicides**

Fungicide use is very common at postharvest stage but as far as fruits are concerned, use of fungicide after harvest is strongly prohibited by FAO. The applications of synthetic fungicides rapidly increased throughout the preceding era. About four hundred thousand tons of fungicides are globally applied, which represents 17.5% of universal pesticide applications. The practice of hazardous fungicides to manage phytopathogenic postharvest fungal rots is limited, due to the toxic residual effect and long degradation period.

*Essential Oils Based Nano Formulations against Postharvest Fungal Rots DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113834*

Application of synthetic fungicides against postharvest rots is known to be vastly effective and widely practical technique in orchards [12]. On the other hand, these chemicals have toxicologic hazards, which are dangerous to human health and cause ecological pollution. It is pertinent to mention that in few developed countries the use of fungicides is strongly prohibited by law after harvesting. Presently, the trend of using synthetic fungicides is reducing and practice of their use in agricultural products is rapidly minimizing [13]. Long term extensive practices of these hazardous fungicides may create resistance in pathogens, leading to severe conservational pollution with a serious threat to human health [14].

Lately, fludioxonil and azoxystrobin stayed registered in the USA as a postharvest management application against peach decaying rots. Still, post-harvest use of these fungicides in European Union are banned because of fungicide regulatory concerns. Moreover, community stresses towards decrease in fungicides application, encouraged by more awareness of conservational and health concerns. The lack of an effective post-harvest strategy against fungal rot of peaches focuses the need for developing novel and eco-friendly control methods [13].
