Native root-associated bacteria rescue a plant from a sudden-wilt disease that emerged during continuous cropping.

ABSTRACT: Plants maintain microbial associations whose functions remain largely unknown. For the past 15 y, we have planted the annual postfire tobacco Nicotiana attenuata into an experimental field plot in the plant's native habitat, and for the last 8 y the number of plants dying from a sudden wilt disease has increased, leading to crop failure. Inadvertently we had recapitulated the common agricultural dilemma of pathogen buildup associated with continuous cropping for this native plant. Plants suffered sudden tissue collapse and black roots, symptoms similar to a Fusarium-Alternaria disease complex, recently characterized in a nearby native population and developed into an in vitro pathosystem for N. attenuata. With this in vitro disease system, different protection strategies (fungicide and ino

SUBMITTER: Santhanam R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4568709 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature