Biosecurity agency looks at bacterial wilt in solanaceous crops |05 April 2018

Members of the National Biosecurity Agency (NBA) and the Seychelles Agricultural Agency (SAA) received a debriefing on bacterial wilt in solanaceous crops by two Reunion experts.

Two experts from the University of La Réunion, Fabien Guerin and Professor Stephane Poussier, presented their findings at a workshop held last Thursday at the NBA’s meeting room.

The experts visited various farms on Mahé and Praslin to collect samples in solanaceous crops such as tomato, eggplant, chilli to identify bacterial wilt caused by the casual agent known as Ralstonia solanacearum.

Ralstonia solanacearum is a soil-borne plant pathogenic bacterium which colonises the xylem, causing bacterial wilt in a very wide range of potential host plants.

This bacteria is present in the Indian Ocean and Eastern Africa, while unknown status for its genetic, diversity, host range and genetic structure.

Present at this workshop were the chief plant biosecurity officer of the NBA  Keven Nancy, border control officers, post border control officers and representatives from the Anse Boileau research centre.

The principal officer for border control, Bobb Petrousse, said a widespread of this bacteria would result in economical loss to the growers and farmers.

“The plant will simply wilt and you will lose production and yield as it is a soil born disease. This bacterial wilt is affecting Seychelles badly as there was a sign of the bacterium on almost every field visited either in red soil or sandy soil and different,” he said.

He added there is a need for the officers as well as the farmers to know the symptoms of bacterial wilt for early detection so as to prevent the heavy cost with the solanaceous crops.

“We will better equip our border control officers to know how to identify and diagnose the disease as many people import plants and when they are well trained they can easily identify the symptoms,” he said.

Mr Petrousse said there will be continuous monitoring and survey of Ralstonia solanacearum in the country.

“We will be collecting more samplings as new cases of bacterial wilt is introduced and it will be sent to Reunion Island where we work in collaboration with CIRAD who will help determine whether or not the strain remains the same,” he added.

The experts noted that the bacteria can be contained but not destroyed so they are advising that the farmers take care of the origin of the seeds to be sure that it is not affected by the bacterium and to ask for assistance from NBA to diagnose whether there is the presence of the bacterium.

“Some effective measures which the farmers can undertake is to indulge in prophylactic measures directly into the soil, use alcohol when they cut the leaves of the plant, sterilise their tools between each plant so as not to disseminate the bacterium from plant to plant,” said Professor Poussier.