Ethiopian coffee germplasm is a valuable resistance gene pool to brazilian Pseudomonas syringae PVS garcae and tabaci

Abstract

Seven wild accessions of Coffea arabica from Ethiopia prospected by FAO Coffee Mission 1964-1965 were investigated concerning the resistance to 18 Brazilian strains and two Kenyan strains of Pseudomonas syringae pv. garcae and four P. syringae pv. tabaci strains, causal agents of bacterial halo blight and bacterial leaf spot, respectively. The cultivars of C. arabica IPR 102, resistant to the diseases, and Mundo Novo IAC 376-4, susceptible, were used as experimental controls. Our results indicated that the Ethiopian accessions presented high levels of resistance to all Brazilian strains of P. syringae pv. garcae but were susceptible to infection caused by Kenyan strains, which causes different levels of severity in wild accessions and experimental controls. Ethiopian accessions were also considered resistant to the four P. syringae pv. tabaci strains, with low susceptibility observed, one point on the severity scale, in access E-268 in response to a strain of the bacterium.