Research Projects

The Gram-negative β-proteobacteria Ralstonia solanacearum, a bacterium that causes bacterial wilt (BW) disease in over 200 plant species, poses a significant threat to food crops like tomato, potato, and egg-plant. The evolution of new virulent strains and increasing host-range of this disease raises concerns for agronomy. Despite numerous chemical and biological means, there is still a lack of sustainable control measures against BW. Genetic resistance principles in host plants have been given priority, and tomato seedlings are regularly used to study virulence functions of R. solanacearum. In vitro assays reveal that some seedlings always escape severe BW outcomes, possibly due to inherent resistance carried by the escapee seedlings. However, it is unknown whether the same resistance/tolerance phenotype is maintained in developing seedlings till adult/fruiting stages. This project proposal aims to explore questions related to the propagation of tolerant/resistant tomato seedlings, the virulence phenotype of seedlings germinated from tolerant/resistant tomato plants, and the possibility of passing resistance/tolerance traits to subsequent generations. First, tomato seedlings of at least 10 cultivars will be recruited in a virulence assay with R. solanacearum under natural conditions. The resulting tolerant/resistant seedlings will be propagated till fruiting stages, and seeds will be collected and germinated to test the response of respective cultivar-specific seedlings towards R. solanacearum. The passage of resistance/tolerance traits to subsequent generations will be tested through repeated experiments.