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Etiology

Maintenance of Viability and Virulence of Corynebacterium nebraskense. Anne K. Vidaver, Associate Professor, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583; Phytopathology 67:825-827. Accepted for publication 29 December 1976. Copyright © 1977 The American Phytopathological Society, 3340 Pilot Knob Road, St. Paul, MN 55121. All rights reserved.. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-67-825.

Maintenance of viability and virulence of Corynebacterium nebraskense, causal agent of Goss’s bacterial wilt and blight of corn (leaf freckles and wilt), was optimal either on solid complex media maintained at 6 C for 2 yr or as lyophilized cultures maintained at –20 C for 5 yr. Qualitative and quantitative measurements indicated that storage in sterile distilled or deionized water or phosphate buffer at 6 C or room temperature (24 ± 3 C) was unsatisfactory for maintenance of viability and virulence; such treatments also gave rise to colony type variants. Bacterial strains maintained in dried leaves of greenhouse grown plants were viable and virulent up to three months.