Isolation and identification of pathogenic and saprophytic bacterial organisms from pome fruits grown in Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey by commercial and molecular techniques, and researches on the biological control strategies

Apple, pear, montain pear, quince, madlar and loquat are some of the pome fruits commercially grown in many places in the world, including Turkey. There have been a number of pathogens, some of which are bacteria, know to cause economically important diseases and reduction in the quality and yield of pome fruit production. In the present study, all bacterial organism (pathogenic and saprophytic) have been isolated from pome fruits grown in Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey were identified and their morfological, physiological and biochemical characteristics, fatty acid methyl ester profiles and genetic fingerprints have been studied by using commercial and molecular techniques including Microbial Identification System (MIS), 16S-23S rDNA and Eric-PCR. Of total 324 strains in 76 species of 36 bacterial genera were identified by MIS, 82 strains belong to 12 bacterial species (40 Erwinia amylovora, 20 Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae, 6 Erwinia rhapontici, 4 Pseudomonas putida, 3 Pseudomonas huttiensis, 2 Chromobacterium violaceum, 2 Pantoea agglomerans, 1 Alcaligenes piechaudii, 1 Bacillus pumilus GC. Subgroup B, 1 Enterobacter intermedius, 1 Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 1 Pseudomonas cichorii) were found to be pathogenic on pome fruits. With the exception of Erwinia amylovora and Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae 10 bacterial species including were first time identified as pathogens of pome fruits in this study. 53 strains were hypersensetivity positive on tobaco plant, but not pathogenic on pome fruits tested. Evaluation of the remaining 189 saprophytic strains in order to determine potential biocontrol agents against pathogenic strains of Erwinia amylovora and Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae in in-vitro and in-vivo tests showed that 16 test strains (9 Pantoea agglomerans, 1 Alcaligenes piechaudii, 1 Bacillus pumilus, 1 Chromobacterium violaceum, 1 Pseudomonas putida and 1 Serratia liquefaciens) have great capacity to be used as biocontrol agent for management of fire blight and shot blight diseases. 2002, 217 pages Keywords: Erwinia amylovora, Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae, MIS, PCR, Biocontrol ii