Co-Authors:
LUMB, V.M., Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee, DD2 5DA, United Kingdom
PÉROMBELON, M.C.M., Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee, DD2 5DA, United Kingdom
ZUTRA, D., Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel
Abstract:
In Israel field infections of potato plants by Erwinia chrysanthemi are characterized by wilting of the leaves followed by total desiccation of the plants. These symptoms are indistinguishable from those caused by Verticillium dahliae or those that develop during the normal process of plant senescence. Diagnosis of E. chrysanthemi in the spring‐sown (February) crop in Israel is difficult because all three conditions often appear at approximately the same time, late in the growing season in May when the air temperature exceeds 25°C. The symptoms of E. chrysanthemi infection were reproduced in the field when potato seed tubers, tested and found to be contaminated at a low level with E. carotovora pv. carotovora, were inoculated with a strain of E. chrysanthemi isolated from a diseased potato plant. When plants in a growth cabinet at 30°C were stem‐inoculated with E. chrysanthemi, similar symptoms developed when the relative humidity was low (c. 80%). Presence of the disease only on plants grown from seed contaminated with E. chrysanthemi and not from uncontaminated seed suggests that the bacterium is seed borne, as is E. carotovora pv. atroseptica, the blackleg pathogen. Copyright © 1986, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved