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Pathogenicity and aggressiveness in populations of Pseudomonas syringae from Belgian fruit orchards

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Abstract

The pathogenicity of 99 Belgian Pseudomonas syringae strains representative of the genetic diversity encountered in Belgian fruit orchards was evaluated by using 17 pathogenicity tests conducted on pear, cherry, plum, lilac, sugar beet and wheat. The P. syringae pv. morsprunorum strains were pathogenic to stone fruit species but the race 1 strains possessing the cfl gene involved in coronatine production were pathogenic in more tests than those lacking the gene. Also, sweet cherry twigs were a better material to detect pathogenic strains of race 1 and sour cherry twigs of race 2, which accorded with race 2 presence in sour cherry orchards in Belgium. Three groups were defined in the pv. syringae based on pathogenicity. One group pathogenic in 71.1% of the tests and to lilac included toxic lipodesipeptide-producing (TLP+) strains. The second group pathogenic in 26.8% of the tests and non-pathogenic to lilac included TLP+ strains. The thirth group pathogenic in 9.1% of the tests and almost specifically pathogenic to pear included TLP− strains. The three groups were genetically heterogeneous. Although strain-host relationships were noted within the pv. syringae, aptata and atrofaciens when considering the strain origins, such relationships were not found in the pathogenicity tests, suggesting that pathogenicity tests could probably not reproduce all the aspects of the host-pathogen interactions. None of the pathogenicity tests was able to provide all the information provided by the complete study. A test on pear buds indicated that strains different from the pv. syringae were pathogenic to pear.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the Walloon Agricultural Research Centre, Ministry of the Walloon Region (A.B., V.P.), and by the grants 2631 (A.B., F.L.), 2654, S 6081, D31-1080, and D31-1124 (A.B., V.G.) from the Ministry of the Walloon Region, Head Office of Agriculture.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département Biotechnologie, Centre wallon de Recherches agronomiques, chaussée de Charleroi 234, 5030, Gembloux, Belgium

    Valérie Gilbert, Frédérique Legros & Alain Bultreys

  2. Section Biométrie, Gestion des données et Agrométéorologie, Centre wallon de Recherches agronomiques, 5030, Gembloux, Belgium

    Viviane Planchon

  3. Unité de Phytopathologie, Université Catholique de Louvain, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Henri Maraite

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  1. Valérie Gilbert
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  2. Viviane Planchon
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  4. Henri Maraite
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  5. Alain Bultreys
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Correspondence to Alain Bultreys.

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Gilbert, V., Planchon, V., Legros, F. et al. Pathogenicity and aggressiveness in populations of Pseudomonas syringae from Belgian fruit orchards. Eur J Plant Pathol 126, 263–277 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-009-9538-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-009-9538-8

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