The 2009 ASHS Annual Conference

Diseases incited by bacterial plant pathogens are responsible for major economic losses to agricultural production. Significant challenges are associated with controlling bacterial plant diseases.  The principal reason for a lack of adequate control is that effective bactericides are not abundant or do not exist. For most bacterial plant diseases, an integrated management strategy is essential by combining proper cultural practices, biological control, bactericides or plant activators, where applicable, and plant resistance. Biological control has gained recent interest for controlling bacterial diseases. Various strategies for using biological control for bacterial diseases include the use of nonpathogenic or pathogenically-attenuated strains of the pathogen, saprophytic bacteria, and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria to suppress pathogen populations or induce a reaction in the plant such that the pathogen is reduced in its ability to colonize the plant and cause disease. Disease control using these approaches has been variable. Bacteriophages for bacterial disease control have gained interest in the area of plant protection and can be used as part of integrated disease management strategies.  However, the efficacy of phages, as is true of many biological control agents, depends greatly on prevailing environmental factors as well as on susceptibility of the target organism.