Pacific Pests, Pathogens, Weeds & Pesticides - Online edition

Pacific Pests, Pathogens, Weeds & Pesticides

Tomato bacterial wilt (146)


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Summary

  • Worldwide distribution. In tropics and sub-tropics. On more than 200 hosts in more than 30 plant families. Several races. Race 1 infects eggplant, capsicum, chilli, potato, tomato and tobacco, and other families. An important disease.
  • High temperature and rain favours disease. Bacteria block the water-conducting tubes causing a wilt.
  • Place cut stem in water to see 'streaming'.
  • Cultural control: avoid infested land; use 4-year rotation, with maize, soybean, brassicas, rice; plant on ridges/raised beds to improve drainage; remove wilted plants immediately; remove soil from shoes, machinery, and tools; graft tomato onto relatively bacterial wilt-resistant eggplant; use resistant varieties.
  • Chemical control: none recommended.

Common Name

Bacterial wilt, bacterial wilt of potato, bacterial wilt of Solanaceous crops

Scientific Name

Ralstonia solanacearum. There are a number of races. Based on host range, Race 1 has a host range of over 50 plant families (200 plant species), including chilli, capsicum, peanut, and Solanum species (but more rarely on potato); race 2 mostly affects banana and Heliconia; Race 3 is the potato strain (see Fact Steet no. 479); Race 4, ginger; and Race 5, mulberry.

An alternative system based on carbohydrate substrates divides strains into five biovars, with e.g., Race 1 corresponding to biovars 1, 3 and 4, and Race 3 to biovar 2, and Race 5 to biovar 5.

Under a revised classification system (2005), and based on DNA sequencing, Ralstonia solanacearum has been divided into four groups, reflecting geography (phylotypes), and further by genetic sequence of an important gene (sequevars).     


AUTHOR Grahame Jackson
Information (and Photo 1) from Gerlach WWP (1988) Plant diseases of Western Samoa. Samoan German Crop Protection Project, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) Gmbh, Germany; and (with Photo 5) Diseases of vegetable crops in Australia (2010) Editors, Denis Persley, et al. CSIRO Publishing. Photo 3 Anare Caucau, Research Division, Ministry of Agriculture, Fiji. Photo 4 Mike Furlong, University of Queensland, Brisbane.

Produced with support from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research under project PC/2010/090: Strengthening integrated crop management research in the Pacific Islands in support of sustainable intensification of high-value crop production, implemented by the University of Queensland and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

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