First report of Pantoea ananatis causing fruitlet blight of Nagpur mandarin (Citrus reticulata) in India

Journal of Plant Protection Research

“…Our obtained results are in agreement with those recorded by Gonzȃlez et al (2015). They found that Pantoea was the causal agent of leaf bight in many plants for example, on leaves of Nagpur mandarin, The symptom of P. ananatis infection were irregular watersoaked with P. ananatis infection the leaves became water-soaked and quickly turned dark brown or black (Das et al 2020). In wheat there were brownish lesions with clear margins and yellow leaves (Krawczyk et al 2020).…”

“…They reported that P. ananatis is Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, facultative anaerobic, motile, produce catalase, indole production and acid production from D-glucose, D-mannitol, sucrose and lactose. Furthermore, P. ana natis grew on nutrient agar medium and produced bacterial colonies which were yellow, shiny, translucent, convex and circular with entire margins (Das et al 2020). The identification of P. ananatis was confirmed by PCR analysis using 16S rRNA (Yumoto et al 2001;Suryani et al 2012).…”

“…The bacterium was also the causal agent of leaf blight disease on maize (Zea mays L.) in Poland (Krawczyk et al 2010), on sorghum (Sorgum bicolor L.) in Brazil (Cota et al 2010) as well as the white spot disease on maize in Brazil (Sauer et al 2015). The bacterium was recorded as a causal agent of dieback disease on eucalyptus in Iran (De Maayer et al 2010), leaf spot disease on ornamental plants of the Araceae family (Yazdani et al 2018), fruitlet blight disease on Nagpur mandarin (Citrus reiculate L.) in India (Das et al 2020), on white leaves in Poland (Krawczyk et al 2020) and bacterial leaf blight disease on strawberry in Canada and rice in southeast China (Bajpai et al 2020;Yu et al 2021). Identification of Pantoea species was obtained by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) sequencing using the 16S rRNA gene fragment (Cother et al 2004;Nurjanah et al 2017;Azizi et al 2020), where 16S rRNA gene sequence was found insufficient to assign the taxonomy of a new species owing to its polyphyletic nature not only in the same family, but also in the same genus (Liu et al 2016).…”

Pest categorisation of Pantoea ananatis

“…In the last 100 years, disease outbreaks were reported, in which P. ananatis was recognised as the causal agent, or as an associated bacterium that increased disease severity, in association with other pathogens (Paccola‐Meirelles et al, 2001 ; Xue et al, 2021 ). A few cases are associated with a pre‐ or post‐harvest decay of fruits or bulbs, but lacking any specific symptoms on other plant parts (Serrano, 1928 ; Ceponis et al, 1985 ; Bruton et al, 1991 ; Liao et al, 2016 ; Das et al, 2020 ). Currently, the main hosts of P. ananatis reported in the most recent literature are: onion ( Allium cepa ), rice ( Oryza sativa ), maize ( Zea mays ), sorghum ( Sorghum spp.…”

“…On sorghum, occasional disease outbreaks lead to foliar blights up to 50% of leaves (Azad et al, 2000 ). More recently, up to 20% of fruitlet losses were reported on mandarin in Maharashtra, India (Das et al, 2020 ). As a post‐harvest pathogen of melon, P. ananatis was reported to cause up to 87% of losses during storage of fruits (Bruton et al, 1991 ).…”