A PHLID Model for Tomato Bacterial Canker Predicting on Epidemics of the Pathogen

Abstract

A pathogen, healthy, latently infected, infectious, and diseased plant (PHLID) model for botanical epidemics was defined for tomato bacterial canker (TBC) caused by the pathogenic plant bacteria, Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis (Cmm). First, the incubation period had to be defined to develop this type of model. To estimate the parameter of incubation period, inoculation experiments were conducted in which it was assumed that infection is transferred to healthy plants by cutting with contaminated scissors after cutting infected plants with early symptoms or symptomless. The concentration of Cmm was increased over 1 × 106 cells/g plant tissue at 20 cm away from the inoculated point on the stem 10 days after inoculation, and then the approximate incubation period of TBC in symptomless infected plants was defined as 10 days. The developed PHLID model showed the dynamics of diseased plants incidence and fitted the curve of the proportion of diseased plants observed in fields well. This model also contains the factors of pathogen and disease control, and it was able to simulate the control effects and combined two different control methods, which were the soil and scissors disinfections to prevent primary and secondary transmissions, respectively. Thus, this PHLID model for TBC can be used to simulate not only the increasing number of diseased plants but also suppressing disease increase.