Diet and Injection, Important Recommendations to Characterize Clavibacter michiganensis–Tomato Interactions

Abstract

Tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important vegetables in the world. Its extensive cultivation has made this plant the target of many viral, fungal, and bacterial diseases. Among them, bacterial canker of tomato caused by Clavibacter michiganensis ( Cm) has been named one of the most devastating diseases affecting the tomato industry worldwide. It can significantly reduce the yields and profitability of this crop. One of the big challenges we found when working with Cm and trying to characterize the virulence of different isolates was the lack of a consensus methodology to inoculate tomato plants, fertilize them, and characterize Cm virulence. The aim of this research was to identify an artificial inoculation method to induce bacterial canker on tomato plants in greenhouse conditions to homogenize the results of different studies with Cm. We compared two inoculation methods, the scalpel and syringe methods, with two levels of fertilization, low and high fertilization. After evaluating several variables, such as the percentage of necrotic leaves and the height of the plants, the results showed that syringe inoculation with low fertilization was the most effective inoculation method, allowing for the development of a multilevel scale that can be used to study the interaction between tomato plants and Cm isolates. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .