A rapid and sensitive method for direct detection of Erwinia amylovora in symptomatic and asymptomatic plant tissues by polymerase chain reaction

Fire blight is a destructive disease of apple and pear trees and other rosaceous plants caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Erwinia amylovora. Several molecular detection procedures described for this plant pathogen are either too time consuming, too insensitive or impractical when handling a large number of samples routinely. Here, we describe a modified protocol of the REDExtract-N-Amp(TM) Plant polymerase chain reaction kit for the detection of E. amylovorain planta and demonstrate that it provides simplicity, high sensitivity, speed and high throughput potential. A total of 951 samples collected in Austria were tested with the modified protocol and the standard protocol of our laboratory to validate the accuracy of this detection method.