Bacterial Wilting

The causal organism is bacteria. Its name is Pseudomonas solanacearum (Ralstonia solanacearum). It has alternate hosts like potato, tobacco, egg plants, some weeds, banana, plantain, pepper, groundnut, sweet potato. The pathogen can survive in the soils for long duration without its host plants.

The gardeners cannot control the disease once the tomato plants show any symptoms of the bacterial wilting and the weather is favorable for the spread of the disease. There are a variety of races of the causal pathogen. For growing tomatoes successfully, the gardeners must select the tomato varieties resistant to the bacterial wilting. For it, they must take the information of the appropriate tomato varieties resistant to the bacterial wilting.

By the name, gardeners can identify the tomato plants if they are affected by the bacterial wilting. First the bottom leaves of the tomato plants appear wilting. In the evening and night the wilting disappears. The plants look turgid and unaffected. After a few days, the plants finally and suddenly wilt and die because of the bacterial wilting. If the gardener cuts the stem of the bacterial wilt affected tomato plant and place the pieces into clean water in a small glass container, the gardener will see cloud like substance oozing from the cut region. This means that the tomato plants were damaged by the bacterial wilting.

If the weather is unfavorable for the multiplication of the pathogen, the pathogen will not kill the tomato plants, but cause great loss in the yield of the tomato crop. The pathogen lives in shoots as well as roots. The pathogen can enter the healthy tomato plants through injury in any parts of the plants. Insect and nematode can also infect the pathogen into the healthy tomato plants through their wound or injuries.

The atmospheric temperature of 30 to 350C and moist soil are the favorable for the spread of the bacterial wilting in the population of the tomato plants. Higher is the moisture content in the soils, greater will be the problem of the bacterial wilting in tomato plants. Heavy soils with rich amount of clay keep the moisture content for long duration, so heavy soils also favor the development of bacterial wilting in the tomato plants.

For the control of the bacterial blight, avoid growing tomatoes in the land which had the crops damaged by bacterial wilting last year or two years ago. The gardeners should grow some other crops such as maize, cotton, soybeans, grasses and rice in the land where they are used to growing tomatoes. The crop rotation practice is commonly adopted in the land where the gardeners are used to growing tomatoes. Destroy the plants damaged by bacterial wilting. For growing tomatoes successfully use nursery bed of sterilized soils. Or, sow the tomato seeds in the tray with the sterilized soils.

Grafted plant materials are also used for growing tomatoes successfully. Grafted planting materials are produced transferring the scion of high yielding disease resistant tomato to bacterial wilting resistant rootstocks of egg plant. Take information about the bacterial resistant tomato variety for your locality and adopt it for growing tomatoes successfully. Control the crop damaging pests whether they are nematodes or insects or soil worms to check the attack of the disease of bacterial wilting.

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