Identification of Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae causing bacterial leaf blight of Miscanthus sinensis

Abstract

In the late summer of 2015, severe leaf blight occurred on Miscanthus sinensis grown on natural riverside lands of the Han River in Seoul, South Korea. Symptoms included chlorosis and necrotic lesions on the leaves. Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, and rod-shaped Pseudomonas syringae were consistently recovered from the infected leaves. We provide ample evidence for P. syringae pv. syringae (Pss) as the pathogen, based on the results of LOPAT, Biolog, API tests, MALDI-TOF MS, and multilocus sequence analysis. Symptoms after artificial inoculation were mild compared to symptoms following natural infection, whereas the control plants were asymptomatic. Bacteria re-isolated from leaves with mild symptoms were identical to the original strain, as determined by the rpoD gene sequence. This is the first report of Pss causing bacterial leaf blight on M. sinensis.