OCCURRENCE OF PSEUDOMONAS CICHORII ON TOMATOES IN SÃO PAULO STATE, BRAZIL

ABSTRACT

Recently, generalized blight symptoms were observed in tomato leaves of the types Salad and Italian, at two commercial fields located in Bragança Paulista and Mogi Guaçú, SP, Brazil. The presence of bacterial exudation was verified in observations of infected tissues under an optical microscope. Isolation attempts allowed the recovery of rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacteria, in white colonies that produced fluorescent pigment in King’s B medium. Bacterial isolates were submitted to LOPAT tests and classified into group III (+ +); consequently, they were identified as Pseudomonas cichorii. These results were corroborated by indirect immunofluorescence tests, using antisera produced for the type strain of P. cichorii. This bacterium causes diseases in several crops of economic importance, and had not yet been observed on tomatoes in Brazil. Bacterial isolates have been deposited with the Phytobacteria Culture Collection of the Instituto Biológico, under accession numbers IBSBF 2309 and IBSBF 2323.

KEY WORDS
Lycopersicon esculentum ; leaf blight; LOPAT tests