Bacterial Plant Diseases

Just like all living things, plants can be infected by micro-organisms and develop diseases. These diseases might be caused by bacteria, fungi or viruses. Diseases can affect the plant’s ability to grow, flower and produce fruit/tubers meaning they can be a big problem for wild, managed and crop plants.

This website focuses on plant diseases caused by bacteria. There are many different types of bacteria which can cause disease in plants. Some are very specific, only infecting one particular plant. Others, like Xylella fastidiosa, are generalists and can infect hundreds of different plants.

When bacteria infect a plant they can cause visible symptoms like spots on the leaves or fruits, oozing or mushy lesions, cankers and wilting. If the infection isn’t contained, either by the plant’s own defences or human intervention, it can ultimately kill the plant.

Bacteria are usually spread between plants by ‘vectors’ including insects, nematode worms and rain. Plants can become more susceptible to bacterial infection if they are weakened or damaged by extreme weather, grazing animals, harvesting/pruning tools or other kinds of stress. Wounds allow bacteria to get past the plants defences and into cells where they can multiply.

A spittlebug which can spread Xylella fastidiosa
cherry canker
Bacterial canker on a cherry tree
A healthy and diseased tomato plant
Healthy (back) and diseased (front) tomato seedlings infected by Ralstonia solanacearum

Bacterial plant diseases can be very difficult to control and potentially devastating. Our researchers are focussing on novel methods such as improving our ability to predict outbreaks, using viruses to kill bacteria, or treating plants and soils with non-harmful micro-organisms which can outcompete the pathogenic bacteria.

Find out more about bacterial plant diseases

If you are interested in learning more about bacterial plant diseases in general the resources below might be helpful. To learn about specific bacterial diseases please follow the links from our Resources page.