Evaluation of seedborne bacterial pathogens on common bean cultivars grown in central Anatolia region, Turkey

Bacterial diseases of bean cause economically important losses worldwide. The most important method for managing bacterial diseases on bean is the use of pathogen-free seed. In this study, 198 different dry bean seed samples of six different cultivars including Dermason, Cali, Sira, Battal, Bombay and Seker, were collected from 12 provinces of Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. All were tested to investigate the seedlots as primary inoculum sources of the major bacterial diseases. The data revealed that 22,72 %, 13,63 %, 11,11 %, 1,51 % and 0.5 % of seed samples tested were contaminated with five seedborne bacterial pathogens, Pseudomonas savastanoi pv. phaseolicola (Psp), Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae (Pss), Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. phaseoli (Xap), X. axonopodis pv. phaseoli var. fuscans (Xapf) and Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens (Cff), respectively. All bacterial strains isolated were identified based on morphological, physiological, biochemical, molecular and pathogenicity tests. The results showed that Psp and Pss were found together on cv. Cali; Psp and Xap on cv. Dermason and cv. Sira; and Pss and Xap on cv. Seker, cv. Dermason, and cv. Cali. Therefore, the results in the present study suggested that evaluation and selection of pathogen-free seeds are very important for preventing the spread of pathogens and effective management of seed borne bacterial diseases prevalent in bean growing regions; in addition to implementation of integrated crop production strategies such as crop rotation, sanitation, seed treatment, tolerant/resistant cultivar selection and proper bactericide application.