New Field Isolates of Rhizobium leguminosarum Biovar Viciae That Nodulate the Primitive Pea Cultivar Afghanistan in Addition to Modern Cultivars

Abstract

A collection of 13 field isolates of Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. viciae that have the ability to nodulate the roots of current North American cultivars of peas as well as a “primitive” cultivar, Afghanistan, was examined. These isolates originated in diverse geographical regions of the world, which indicates that this phenotype is not restricted to isolates from any one region. When subclones of the nodulation region from one plasmid were used to examine Eco RI-fragment-length polymorphisms in this collection of strains as well as in a collection comprising strains that do not nodulate the primitive cultivar, polymorphism was found in both collections. With one exception, RisφA6, all strains that nodulated cv. Afghanistan pea contained a region called nodX as an extension to the nodA BCIJ operon that has been observed in all R. leguminosarum bv. viciae strains, including those that do not nodulate cv. Afghanistan pea. RisφA6 was also the only strain in which nodulating ability could not be associated with a conjugative plasmid.