Purpose

World’s Plant Diseases Caused By Bacteria

Milton N. Schroth, Eva I. Hecht-Poinar and Anne M. Alvarez

Department of Plant Pathology (1903–1992), University of California, Berkeley 94720;
third author, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu 96822.

The purpose of this website is to provide images and data of the world’s most
important bacterial plant diseases. The search features are designed to assist
teachers, scientists, farm advisors and backyard gardeners in diagnosis and
disease management. It is applicable for computers, smart phones and other
devices that allow data to be viewed almost anywhere in the world. We present
over 1,000 images with characteristic symptoms and captions that include
pathogen name, common and scientific names of the host and disease. When
possible, multiple images are provided to show various stages of symptom
expression as the disease progresses. Thirty-five narratives present an
overview of the ecology and pathogenic properties of some major types of plant
diseases such as galls, rots, wilts, fasciations, and scabs. 

Not all bacterial diseases are included either because images no longer existed
or a provider could not be located. Some images were imperfect due to problems
common to old slides but the images were nevertheless included when no others
were available. It is not possible to keep up with the taxonomy of bacteria past
2010 as taxonomists often alter names based on new information It is our hope
that future efforts will expand the coverage of bacterial diseases with images of
new and recently described diseases and/or improve resolution and quality of
some images which were previously unavailable.

All contributors have signed copyright release forms or permissions and the
images are now “free open access“, courtesy of the American
Phytopathological Society (APS). Free open access is important to the
dissemination of scientific information and we hope that scientific
organizations will follow our practice. Land grant universities throughout the
states with their experiment stations have always been outstanding in
providing needed information and are a good source for additional specific
information to complement our website.