Archivio Journal of Plant Pathology

Abstract:

Fire blight resistance of various pear, apple and, for the first time, loquat cultivars and selections were evaluated in Greece in 1997-1999. Shoots of accessions from Greece, Italy, Spain, France, and Great Britain were inoculated with a mixture of five Greek isolates of Erwinia amylovora, and the size of the lesions was recorded after six weeks. Based on their reactions, the cultivars were grouped into five classes according to the frequency of successful infections and their severity expressed as weighted mean of lesion length as percentage of total length of blighted shoots. All loquat cultivars were very susceptible, whereas apple and pear cultivars showed various levels of susceptibility. Variations were also observed in host reactions in different years.