Bacterial fruit blotch of melon: Screens for disease tolerance and role of seed transmission in pathogenicity

Ofir Bahar, Giora Kritzman, Saul Burdman*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

68 Scopus citations

Abstract

Bacterial fruit blotch (BFB) of cucurbits, caused by Acidovorax avenae subsp. citrulli, is a serious threat to the watermelon and melon industries. To date, there are no commercial cultivars of cucurbit crops resistant to the disease. Here we assessed the level of tolerance to bacterial fruit blotch of various commercial cultivars as well as breeding and wild lines of melon, using seed-transmission assays and seedling-inoculation experiments. Selected cultivars were also tested in a greenhouse experiment with mature plants. All tested cultivars/lines were found to be susceptible to the pathogen, and most of them showed different responses (relative tolerance vs. susceptibility) in the different assays; however, some consistent trends were found: cv. ADIR339 was relatively tolerant in all tested assays, and cv. 6407 and wild lines BLB-B and EAD-B were relatively tolerant in seed-transmission assays. We also provide evidence supporting a strong correlation between the level of susceptibility of a cultivar/line and the ability of the pathogen to adhere to or penetrate the seed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to assess melon cultivars/lines for bacterial fruit blotch response.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)71-83
Number of pages13
JournalEuropean Journal of Plant Pathology
Volume123
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2009

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank Prof. Jaacov Katan and Prof. Yigal Cohen for valuable comments during the preparation of this manuscript. We also thank Mr. Benny Kirshner and Mrs. Tamar Zimmerman for valuable technical support, and Dr. Yossef Burger, Mr. Yosi Fuxenbaum, Mr. Amir Lehrer and Mr. Dror Weiss, for kindly providing seeds for this work. This study was supported by grant number 823018005 from the Chief Scientist and from the Vegetable Division of the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture.

Keywords

  • Acidovorax
  • Citrulli
  • Cucumis melo
  • Seed transmission

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