Symptom Library
Why Is My Fruit Rotting?
Fruit rot means the fruit tissue is actively breaking down. Strawberries and cucumbers can both become soft, sunken, water-soaked, moldy, or otherwise decayed, but the organisms and crop-specific patterns behind that damage are not identical.
What this symptom means
Fruit Rot is a tissue-breakdown symptom. It is different from Fruit Not Ripening, where otherwise firm fruit has not completed maturity; from general Fruit Damage, where injury may not be decaying; and from Mold or Fuzzy Growth, where visible growth can occur on different tissues or may appear only after decay is already advanced.
What to notice first
- Whether affected tissue is firm, soft, water-soaked, sunken, or collapsing
- Where the first lesion begins and whether it expands into healthy tissue
- Gray, white, salmon, green-black, or other surface growth on fresh lesions
- Recent rain, humidity, overhead watering, drainage, and fruit contact with wet soil or neighboring fruit
- Leaf, stem, crown, or whole-plant symptoms that appear with the fruit decay
GardenSolved checkpoint
Do not do this yet
- Do not spray a fungicide from the word rot alone.
- Do not call firm discoloration or stalled ripening fruit rot unless tissue is actually breaking down.
- Do not assume all fuzzy growth on fruit represents the same disease.
- Do not leave collapsing fruit in contact with healthy fruit while you are identifying the pattern.
Choose the plant-specific owner
Start with the closest match.
Primary matches own this visible symptom. Related-clue matches mention it as part of a broader diagnostic pattern, so use them only when the page title and plant fit what you are seeing.
Vegetables · Cucumbers
Why Are My Cucumbers Rotting?
Use lesion texture, location, growth on the fruit, and companion vine symptoms to separate common cucumber fruit rots.
Open plant-specific answerFruit · Strawberries
Why Are My Strawberries Rotting Before They Ripen?
Use the rot pattern and moisture conditions to distinguish gray mold from other strawberry fruit rots.
Open plant-specific answerNot sure which answer fits?
Continue in the Diagnostic Finder.
Fruit rot will already be selected. Choose what you are growing and the Finder will keep that problem when a matching diagnostic branch exists.