CHARACTERIZATION OF THE CAUSAL AGENT OF BACTERIAL PINEAPPLE

HEART ROT AND ASSESSMENT OF POSSIBLE HOST PLANTS

Aeny TN, A Niswati, R Suharjo, C Ginting, D Sari & RA Wardhana

Corresponding email: radix_suharjo@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Occurence of

heart rot and fruit collapse disease was observed on pineapple (Ananas

comosus) grown at the pineapple plantations of Nusantara Tropical Farm (NTF) Company
located in East Lampung area, Lampung province of Indonesia in October 2013. The
disease had never been reported from any pineapple plantation area in Indonesia, until it was
proposed by Prasetyo & Aeny (2014) that the pathogen is Erwnia chrysanthemi. The
symptom begin as a small water-soaked lesion on old leaves, enlarged and formed blister-like
on upper surface of infected leaves and eventually resulted in soft rot of the infected plants
including the fruit that became collapse. Further identification and characterization of the
causal agent were conducted to determine the causal agent of the disease. Some phenotypic
characterizations were performed such as gram reaction, O/F test, potato soft rot test and
lechitinase test.. Host range test was also conducted to evaluate the response of several crops
other than pineapple commonly grown in Lampung. Based on its phenotypic characteristics,
the causal agent was identified as Erwinia chrysanthemi (Dickeya sp. ). This pathogen
capable of infecting several tested crops such as aloe vera, chinese cabbage, eggplant, lettuce,
onion, potato and welsh onion.
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Key words: characterization, Dickeya, Erwinia chrysanthemi, pineapple, host plant