Bacterial Blight of Welsh Onion : A New Disease Caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. allii pv. nov.

In June of 1998, a new bacterial disease was observed on Welsh onion in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Infected plants in nursery boxes were stunted with tip dieback, and heavily infected plants died. In fields, the disease appeared on leaves as irregular gray spots or elliptical spots with creases in the center. These spots enlarged and spread rapidly continued cloudy or rainy weather, and formed blight lesions on outer leaves. Yellow mucoid bacterial colonies were consistently isolated from these lesions. The causal bacterium was identified as a pathovar of Xanthomonas campestris on the basis of bacteriological properties. The bacterium was pathogenic to Welsh onion, onion, but nonpathogenic to chive, Chinese chive and hyacinth. Of Liliaceae plants, which contain Welsh onion and onion, only hyacinth has been reported as a host for the genus Xanthomonas, namely X. campestris pv. hyacinthi. However, strains of X. campestris pv. hyacinthi were not pathogenic against either Welsh onion or onion. From these results, the bacterium isolated from Welsh onion is considered to be a new pathovar of X. campestris, and the name of X. campestris pv. allii pv. nov. is proposed. A strain MAFF 311173 is designated as the pathotype strain.