Australasian Plant Disease Notes (2020) 15 (4) - Bacterial blight on Dracaena

Okhee Choi, Yeyeong Lee, Byeongsam Kang, Seunghoe Kim and Jinwoo Kim (2020)
Bacterial blight on Dracaena sanderiana caused by Burkholderia cepacia
Australasian Plant Disease Notes 15 (4)
Abstract: In 2018, severe bacterial blight was observed on Dracaena sanderiana plants imported and cultivated by a commercial nursery in Jinju, South Korea. This indoor plant is popularly grown for indoor air purification to prevent sick building syndrome (SBS). The diseased plants had severe blight symptoms, with leaf chlorosis and crumpling of stem and leaves. To identify the causal agent, we performed bacterial isolation, pathogenicity tests, physiological analysis, sequencing of the 16S rRNA region and recA gene, and phylogenetic analysis; the bacterial pathogen was identified as Burkholderia cepacia. This is the first report of bacterial blight on D. sanderiana caused by B. cepacia. Although there is no clear epidemiological information on the inoculum source, the recent occurrence of the disease indicates that B. cepacia is a potential threat to the production of indoor dracaena plants, which are increasingly used for air purification in SBS. Because D. sanderiana is grown in indoor living spaces, B. cepacia infection could threaten human health as well.
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Database assignments for author(s): Jinwoo Kim

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
general biology - morphology - evolution

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Burkholderia cepacia	Dracaena (crop)	Korea-South