ISHS Acta Horticulturae 225: Bacterial and Bacteria-like Contaminants of Plant Tissue Cultures
CHARACTERISATION OF MICRO-ORGANISMS ISOLATED FROM PLANTS DURING MICROPROPAGATION |
| Authors: | I.V. Leggatt, W.M. Waites, C. Leifert, J. Nicholas |
| Abstract:
Thirty-one micro-organisms were isolated and characterised from ten different plant cultivars growing in micropropagation. Yeasts, Corynebacterium spp. and Pseudomonas spp. were the commonest isolates. Most isolates were able to utilise a wide variety of carbon sources and a number were resistant to antibiotics. Of the antibiotics tested, rifampicin, chloramphenicol and neomycin were the most inhibitory. Re-inoculation of thirteen apparently disease-free plants resulted in only four which displayed disease symptoms similar to those produced by the original micro-organism. In only one of these four cases did the micro-organism re-isolated appear similar to the organism used for inoculation and, even in this case, the re-isolated micro-organism was present with others, suggesting that disease-free plants carry a number of micro-organisms while growing in micropropagation and that mixed cultures of micro-organisms may be required to induce disease. | |
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