We analyse recent data on the production of forward neutrons in deep inelastic scattering at HERA in the framework of a perturbative QCD description for semi-inclusive processes, which includes fracture functions. Using a model estimate for the non-perturbative piece of the fragmentation process, in fairly good agreement with the available data, we analyse the Q^2 dependence of the resulting fracture functions, which is driven by non-homogeneous evolution equations. We also propose a

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... of the pion production cross section in the target fragmentation region as a new test of perturbative QCD, which in this case predicts also a different Q^2 evolution with respect to the one given by the usual Altarelli-Parisi equations.