VIEW ARTICLE

Ecology and Epidemiology

Pseudomonas lachrymans Inoculum on Infected Cucumber Leaves Subjected to Dew- and Rain-type Wetting. Jerry H. Haas, Plant Pathologist, Agriculture Canada, Harrow, Ontario N0R 1G0; Joseph Rotem, Plant Pathologist, The Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel. Phytopathology 66:1219-1223. Accepted for publication 10 April 1976. Copyright © 1976 The American Phytopathological Society, 3340 Pilot Knob Road, St. Paul, MN 55121. All rights reserved.. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-66-1219.

The amount of readily available Pseudomonas lachrymans inoculum present on cucumber leaf surfaces with lesions was determined by vacuuming dry leaves and by dilution-plating of water on leaves subjected to various moisture conditions. No inoculum was lifted by vacuum from dry infected leaves unless the lesions were abraded. With no wetting period (except for a standard 10-minute wash prior to dilution plating), 2.8 × 10⁴ colony-forming units (CFU) were obtained from leaves with one lesion. Increasing lesion numbers per leaf did not yield a comparable increase in CFU. On leaf surfaces wet with dew, both the pathogen and other bacteria increased for the first 12 hours, but the pathogen increased at a much more rapid rate. Following this rise there was a precipitous decline in the population of P. lachrymans and a very large increase in other bacteria on the leaf surface. Similarly infected leaves subjected to continuous rain had increasing populations of both pathogen and nonpathogens for 8-16 hours until a relatively steady state was present. Inoculum production during discontinuous wetting was not additive; wet periods of 4 or 8 hours per day on successive days yielded pathogen and nonpathogen levels similar to those found with single 4- or 8-hour periods of wetting on one day. Also, the post-12-hour decline in pathogen population and increase in other bacteria found with continuous dew was not reproduced by several 4-, 8- or 12-hour wetting periods on successive days. Considering the P. lachrymans CFU available for dissemination from wet infected leaves, it seems likely that angular leaf spot epidemics are not limited by low inoculum levels but by factors that control the ingress of the pathogen to the intercellular leaf spaces.