Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bacterial leaf blight is caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. On nutrient agar, bacterial colonies are circular, light yellow, and convex, and produce a yellow pigment (Webster and Gunnell 1992; Fig. 1). The disease is observed on both seedlings and older plants. On seedlings, infected leaves turn grayish green and roll up. As disease progresses, leaves turn yellow to straw-colored and wilt, leading whole seedlings to dry up and die. This expression of the disease is known as kresek (Ou 1985, Mew et al 1993). This form of the disease on seedlings may sometimes be confused with early rice stem borer damage. On older plants, lesions usually develop as water-soaked to Fig. 1. Colonies of Xanthomonas yellow-orange stripes on leaf oryzae pv. oryzae. blades or leaf tips or on mechanically injured parts of leaves (Fig. 2). Lesions have a wavy margin and progress toward the leaf base. On young lesions, bacterial ooze resembling a milky dew drop can be observed early in the morning. The bacterial ooze later on dries up and becomes small yellowish beads underneath the leaf. Old lesions turn yellow to grayish white with black dots due to the growth of various saprophytic fungi. On severely infected leaves, lesions may extend to the leaf sheath. To quickly diagnose bacterial leaf blight, a young lesion is cut across and placed in a transparent glass container with clear water. After a few minutes, the container (held against light) will show a turbid liquid exuding from the cut end of the leaf. The turbid exudates consist of bacteria emitted from the cut end of the infected leaf.
Produced by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) 2010, IRRI, All rights reserved Mar 2010
References
Bonman JM, Khush GS, Nelson RJ. 1992. Breeding for resistance to rice pests. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 30:507-528. Jena KK, Mackill DJ. 2008. Molecular markers and their use in marker-assisted selection in rice. Crop Sci. 48:12661276. Mew TW, Vera Cruz CM. 2001. Bacterial blight of rice. In: Maloy OC, Murray TD, editors. Encyclopaedia of plant pathology. John Wiley and Sons, New York. p 71-74. Mew TW, Alvarez AM, Leach JE, Swings J. 1993. Focus on bacterial blight of rice. Plant Dis. 77:5-12. Ou SH. 1985. Rice diseases. Second edition. Commonwealth Mycological Institute, Kew, Surrey. 380 p. Reddy APK, Katyal JC, Rouse DI, MacKenzie DR. 1979. Relationship between nitrogen fertilization, bacterial leaf blight severity, and yield of rice. Phytopathology 69:970-973. Savary S, Willocquet L, Elazegui FA, Teng PS, Du PV, Zhu D, Tang Q, Lin X, Singh HM, Srivastava RK. 2000. Rice pest constraints in tropical Asia: characterization of injury profiles in relation to production situations. Plant Dis. 84:341-356. Webster RK, Gunnell PS. 1992. Compendium of rice diseases. American Phytopathology Society, St. Paul, Minnesota. 62 p.
2 Produced by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) 2010, IRRI, All rights reserved Mar 2010