Screening for disease resistance in rice varieties against bacterial panicle blight disease (Burkholderia glumae) in Northern Sumatra of Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract In Indonesia, bacterial panicle blight (BPB) disease affecting rice caused by seed-borne pathogen, Burkholderia glumae has emerged as a serious problem in rice growing areas in several provinces in Java and Sulawesi since 2014, but not yet in Northern Sumatra. This pathogen is listed as a quarantine pathogen which has to limit the spread. Rice import from China, India and Philippines, where are the disease outbreak locations, is the main cause of the dissemination of BPB disease in Indonesia. As rice is the main staple food in Indonesia, significant crop losses have had huge impact to food security. Four of twenty-three bacterial strains isolated from infected rice fields of six districts in Northern Sumatra were identified as B. glumae on the basis of morphological, biochemical and molecular characterizations as well as pathogenicity assay. These four bacterial strains were tested on five rice cultivars in the green house.