Survival analysis is applied when the time until the occurrence of an event is the object of interest. Such data are routinely collected in plant pathology whereas application of methods of survival analysis is uncommon. Basic concepts in survival analysis for use in plant pathology such as Kaplan-Meier methods, log-rank test and Cox proportional hazards models are introduced and applied estimating the effects of cultivars on the survival times of brown rot symptoms and on the instantaneous risk of expressing symptoms in a hypothetical study.