ISHS Acta Horticulturae 695: I International Symposium on Tomato Diseases
BACTERIOPHAGE: A VIABLE BACTERIA CONTROL SOLUTION |
| Authors: | L.E. Jackson, J.B. Jones |
| Keywords: | phage, AgriPhage, OmniLytics, virus, control, bacterial, plant, disease, tomato, wilt, spot, defoliation, copper, resistance |
| Abstract:
An increasing number of bacterial plant pathogens have been reported to be tolerant or resistant to bactericides in present-day use. Bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) were evaluated as alternative control agents using bacterial wilt and bacterial spot of tomato as test systems. It was found that 92% of three-week old tomato plants pretreated 4 hours (h), 1 day (d), 3 and 5 d with bacteriophages (phages) before inoculating with Ralstonia solanacearum remained healthy, whereas 95% of untreated plants had some manifestation of disease. Similarly, 91% of three-week old tomato plants given phage specific for Xanthomonas perforans 4 h and 1 d before exposure to the pathogen had less than 12% defoliation. In contrast, 80% of untreated plants displayed more than 12% disease severity. Although all plants were pretreated with phage by pouring 50 ml around the base of plants, after 11 d phage was isolated from all terminal leaflets from a phage-treated bacterial spot infected plant. Higher numbers of phage were obtained from the youngest leaflet as well as from a blossom on the 21st d. Plants treated with phage both in the greenhouse and field demonstrated less spread and incidence of bacterial spot than those given water or copper. | |
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