This chapter discusses the distribution and the economic impact of fire blight (Erwinia amylovora), particularly in North America, Europe, eastern Mediterranean, and the Pacific Rim.
This chapter reviews the work that has brought biological control of fire blight (Erwinia amylovora) from research laboratories to practical use in commercial pear and apple orchards. The discussion emphasizes biological interaction occurring at the population (orchard) level, and is biased towards antagonist strains that are commercially available or are nearing commercial availability in the USA. These strains include Pseudomonas fluorescens strain A506 and Erwinia herbicola (syn. Pantoea agglomerans) strain C9-1, which are representative of the two genera of Gram negative bacteria that have been investigated in the majority of published research on biological control of fire blight.
Disease management in fruit crops worldwide is heavily dependent upon the application of synthetic fungicides for pathogen control However restrictions on fungicide use and widespread emergence of pathogen resistance has increased global demand for more sustainable production systems and driven research towards alternative disease control strategies Biological control which includes elicitors of host defence microbial antagonists and natural products offers an attractive alternative to synthetic pesticides This paper reviews the commercialisation of biological control agents for botrytis in grapes (BOTRYZen) and fire blight in apples and pears (Blossom Bless PomaVita) and the development of a biological control agent for sclerotinia in kiwifruit The importance of understanding disease epidemiology as a prerequisite for developing a biological control system is discussed along with future prospects for biological control of these pathogens
Strains of Pseudomonas syringae able to grow on minimal medium containing 500 mg/litre of copper sulphate were selected from a collection of streptomycinresistant strains isolated in New Zealand From one of these copperresistant strains a 13 kb fragment of DNA was isolated by PCR using primers designed on genes reported to be associated with copper resistance Sequencing of this fragment revealed that a 572 bp and a 275 bp portion had 98 and 95 similarity with ORF A of P syringae pv actinidiae a gene that codes for copper resistance Smaller portions of this 13 kb fragment were highly similar (89 to 100) to portions of another gene involved in copper resistance (copA) from Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato Using this 13 kb fragment as a probe homologous DNA was detected in eight other strains of P syringae which were all subsequently found to be resistant to copper
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