12^th Meeting of the Panel on Bacterial Diseases

Ǻs, NO, 2005-02-15/16

The Panel on Bacterial Diseases met at the Plant Health and Protection Centre of the Norwegian Crop Research Institute, at the kind invitation of Mr Sletten. Thanks are due to him and his colleagues, for their warm hospitality and excellent organization. Participants had the opportunity to visit the laboratories of Department of Plant Pathology and, in the evening, to enjoy in a wonderful local food in one of the famous restaurants. The Panel continued its work on the preparation of diagnostic protocols for regulated bacteria. There are altogether 25 quarantine bacteria from the A1 and A2 lists of EPPO quarantine pests. For 8 of them diagnostic protocols have been developed and published.

Protocols on Clavibacter michiganensis ssp. sepedonicus and Xanthomonas fragariae were finalized by the Panel and they will be presented to the Working Party on Phytosanitary Regulations for approval. 
Protocols on Burkholderia caryophylli, Pantoea stewartii ssp. stewartii and Xanthomonas arboricola pv. pruni were finalized by the Panel and will be now sent to EPPO member governments for their critical comments. 
Considerable progress was made in studying the draft protocols on Xanthomonas oryzae, which includes two pathovars oryzae and oryzicola, and Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vesicatoria and Xanthomonas vesicatoria. They need to be further studied at the next meeting.

The Panel took note of the programme of activity of other related Panels and the Working Party and the following important topics were discussed: knowledge erosion in phytopathology, validation of diagnostic protocols (ring-testing, proficiency testing), new instructions for authors of diagnostic protocols, development of a standard on reporting of a diagnosis, collaboration with the IPPC Technical Panel on Diagnostic Protocols.