Environmental health-POSTER SESSION

Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. sepedonicus (Cms) is a causative pathogen of potato bacterial ring rot. This devastative pathogen poses a constant threat to potato growers worldwide. It was regarded as a disease of cool northen regions but is currently spreading within Europe, including some southern areas (Crete, Cyprus and Spain). The pathogen damages vascular system of tubers, stems and leaves with slow or no development of symptoms on plants. Management of ring rot of potato are especially difficult in storage places, where the pathogen, being in a latent form, may infect almost all tubers. The aim is the study of antibiotic resistance of potato ring rot causative Cms geographically and temporarely representative isolates in Geogia. Cms were initially detected in collected in different regions of Georgia both symptomatic and asymptomatic potato tubers by specific molecular method. Dozens of pure Cms isolates were recovered from these samples and identified by PCR using the pathogen-specific primer set PSA-1 and PSA-R. Relation of 19 virulent strains towards 9 antibiotics: tobramycin, penicillin, trimethoprim, erythromycin, kanamycin, ofloxacin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline and streptomycin by disc-diffusion method have been studied. The isolates demonstrate different susceptibility to the antibiotics, independently they were obtained from symptomatic or asymptomatic tubers.