Microbiology Australia (Jan 2022)
Xylella: the greatest threat to Australian agriculture?
Abstract
The realities of climate change and global world trade could be playing into the hands of plant pathogens, none more so than Xylella fastidiosa. A relatively unimportant and parochial pathogen 50 years ago, it has become one of the most important plant diseases in the world threatening crop production in a wide variety of tree crops all over the globe. It moves within a region within insect vectors analogous to virus transmission but long-distance spread is through traded, often asymptomatic, plants. On arrival in a new region many of the local sap feeding insect population are candidates for its spread and this uncertainty coupled with the potential for the range of these as yet unidentified vectors to enlarge is heaping uncertainty on uncertainty. In addition to crop plants, many amenity trees species are susceptible, infection is often fatal and there is no cure once infection has occurred. Phytosanitation officers around the globe are deeply concerned about this new threat, the likes of which have never been seen previously.
