Epidemiology and Control of Ranunculus Bacterial Blight
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Blight
ON THE RANUNCULUS FRONT:
A BUTTERCUP-BLIGHTING BACTERIA IS NAMED AND NAILED
Some bacteria lead quiet lives. They’re content to focus their
infections on a single plant host and don’t live long without its company.
A plant-specific bacterium won’t wipe out a grower’s entire range. And
it disappears with crop rotation. But woe be the poor crop that harbors
the devoted germ. Recently Southern Californian ranunculus crops fell victim
to a buttercup-fixated bacterial disease causing blight symptoms on the
plants’ leaves, stems, and roots. Early tests showed the bacteria behind
the blight migrate systemically through a host, infecting rootstocks and
even seeds. In time, with propagation of infected plants, the microbe might
have proved itself a well-traveled pest — if not for Endowment-funded
researchers who’ve identified it (as a xanthomonad) and are now testing
promising control methods.
Plant pathologist Dr. Donald Cooksey and a research assistant
are using a time-honored, bacterial- control tactic — and adding to it
a high-tech twist. Batches of ranunculus seeds and tubers are soaked in
a chlorine bleach and hot water bath. Simple enough. But after a spin in
a blender, the material is run through a sensitive protein-detection test
capable of sniffing out telltale signs of targeted bacteria. Only propagation
materials that test “clean” are planted in a commercial-production field
and monitored. Cooksey is now evaluating his first crop of treated ranunculuses.
And to take climate variables’ affect on the bacteria and its hosts, he’s
preparing to make a second planting of treated ranunculuses. Non-treated
seeds and tubers have also been planted and are being used as a case study
of the disease’s development. Results from Cooksey’s crop trials should
be available next year in professional journals as well as gardener-accessible
Cooperative Extension publications.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT RESEARCH-PROJECT LEADER:
Dr. Donald Cooksey, Professor of Plant Pathology, University of California
at Riverside
E-MAIL: <cooksey@ucracl.ucr.edu>
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