dc.description.abstract | BACKGROUND
Futog (Vojvodina, Serbia) is known for the five-century long tradition of cabbage cultivation, which is grown
in two forms during the season, summer and autumn. Pectobacteriaceae causing soft rot disease are among
the most destructive pathogens, influencing the yield and quality of this crop. These pectolytic bacteria cause
maceration of attacked tissues, often followed by specific odor caused by the colonization of saprophytic
bacteria that inhabit damaged tissues.
OBJECTIVES
Within this work, we aimed to identify soft rot-causing bacteria observed on two summer cabbage hybrids
(Cheers F1 and Hippo F1) grown in Futog in 2021.
METHODS
Crystal Violet Pectate (CVP) medium was used for bacterial isolation from six collected cabbage samples
showing soft rot. The pathogenicity of isolates was checked on cabbage heads by making holes at the top and
filling them with bacterial suspensions. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) of cabbage isolates was performed
by sequencing of proA and dnaX genes. Additionally, the Neighbour-joining phylogenetic analysis was performed
with concatenated sequences.
RESULTS
Isolations resulted in the prevalence of pit-forming colonies on CVP. Water-soaked lesions followed by a
specific odor appeared on cabbage heads 24 h after inoculation with all tested isolates, and complete head
destruction occurred after seven days. MLST performed with genes proA and dnaX, identified isolates as
Pectobacterium carotovorum on hybrids Cheers F1 and Hippo F1 and Pectobacterium versatile only present
on Hippo F1, indicating combined infection on this hybrid. On the phylogenetic tree, P. versatile isolates were
separated from P. carotovorum isolates, clustered into four groups. | sr |