First Report of Goss's Bacterial Leaf Blight and Wilt of Corn Caused by Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. nebraskensis in North Dakota

In August of 2011, the North Dakota State University Plant Diagnostic Lab received a hybrid corn (Zea mays) leaf sample from Burleigh County in south-central North Dakota (ND). The leaf had long, irregular, water-soaked lesions consistent with Goss's leaf blight of corn. Using a light microscope at 10× magnification, bacterial streaming was observed from the excised edge of leaf tissue. A bacterial suspension was created, streaked onto a semi-selective CNS medium (1), and incubated at 22°C. Dark yellow-orange colonies appeared on the medium after 5 days. Single colonies were subcultured onto additional CNS media. To verify the identity of the bacterial isolate, PCR amplification of the 16S ribosomal DNA from this isolate along with a known Clavibacter michiganensis spp. nebraskensis (Cmn) isolate collected in Indiana (4) was performed using the eubacterial universal primers 27f and 1525r (3). The 1,431-bp 16S rDNA region was obtained for each isolate and they were compared with each other and with those d...