POST-ENTRY QUARANTINE INSPECTION, FIELD OBSERVATION AND LABORATORY TESTS TO PREVENT ERWINIA AMYLOVORA INFECTION IN HUNGARY

ISHS Acta Horticulturae 338: VI International Workshop on Fireblight

**POST-ENTRY QUARANTINE INSPECTION, FIELD OBSERVATION AND LABORATORY TESTS TO PREVENT ERWINIA AMYLOVORA INFECTION IN HUNGARY**

Author:

N. Anna Kovacs

Abstract:
According to the latest reports, Fire Blight infection has been detected in some of the neighbour countries (Jugoslavia, Czechoslovakia). Although Hungary is free from Erwinia amylovora infection, the present situation makes especially important the testing of possible host plants, and also post-entry quarantine screening of imported plant material, to avoid or, as far as it is possible, delay the establishement and distribution of the disease.

Elements of our plant quarantine regulations at the moment are the following:

avoid the indroduction of the pathogen by imported propagation material by all possible means,
regular inspection of quarantine gardens, commercial plantations, nurseries, household gardens, public greens, and wild hosts,
in the case of occasional introduction of the pathogen, destroy the hearth of infection,
if the pathogen established, assuring the production of pathogen free propagation material.
introduction of tolerant to Erwinia amylovora varieties only after the disease has been established.

Visual observation is the main method of the survey. Plant samples suspected for infection, taken at the place of survey, are sent to the bacteriological laboratory of the service for laboratory analysis. Randomly selected plant material, collected from healthy plants, are also tested for possible latent infection.

The laboratory method currently used is that proposed recently by EPPO, which is based on immunofluorescence staining technique. The necessary sera are originated from Germany (Phytopathological Institute, Aschersleben) and also produced against formaldehyde killed cells of the pathogen, at the Microbiological Laboratory of the Medical High Scool, Pecs. Beside the IF staining, ELISA technique is also used.

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