Soft rot Pectobacteriaceae (SRP) are a group of destructive Gram-negative phytopathogens that can infect a wide range of plant hosts, including potatoes. There are no effective control agents available against SRP, making their management challenging. We have developed a novel approach to protect potato tubers against SRP. It makes use of encapsulated predatory Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus bacteria that upon release from a polymeric carrier, prey upon SRP. We applied a carrageenan-trehalose-based formulation containing a B. bacteriovorus HD100 predator to prevent soft-rot disease development in potato tubers, under various conditions. The dried formulation exhibited very high stability over an eighteen-month period at room temperature (˜25ºC), in contrast to unencapsulated suspensions of the predator, in which viability decreased rapidly below detection level. The rehydrated formulation was as efficient as freshly grown unencapsulated predators, and provided high protection in potted potato tubers, displaying an average of 50% reduction in disease parameters (e.g. tissue decay and disease index) under controlled conditions at 7-days post-inoculation and planting. The protective effect provided by this formulation was maintained in longer-term trials (28 days) conducted in larger vessels within a net-house under natural climate conditions, highlighting its potential for practical application in the field.

Soft rot and blackleg are common diseases affecting potato (Solanum tuberosum) production in Serbia. Pectinolytic plant pathogens belonging to the genera Pectobacterium cause soft rot and wilt diseases by plant cell wall degradation. These opportunistic phytopathogens lead to considerable economic losses in many potato-growing regions worldwide and are listed among top 10 plant pathogenic bacteria (Mansfield et al. 2012). Potato plants (cv. VR808) with symptoms of wilting, slow growth, stem blackening and tubers softening, were collected from a commercial potato field in Zobnatica (Serbia) in July 2019 and subjected to analysis. All symptoms occurred in the same field and the incidence of symptomatic plants was approximately 5%. Isolation was performed from 10 randomly chosen potato plant and tuber samples, expressing wilting and soft rot symptoms. Plant tissue was surface-disinfected and 1 cm length sections from the margins of lesions were macerated in sterile distilled water for 25 min and streaked on nutrient-agar medium. After 48 h of incubation at 26°C, predominant shiny, cream-colored, round colonies were obtained from all samples. Three representative isolates (MMZKVR1, MMZCVR2, and MMZKVR3) from independent samples were selected randomly and subjected to biochemical and pathogenicity tests. Isolates were gram-negative, nonfluorescent facultative anaerobes, exhibiting pectinolytic activity on potato tuber slices and hypersensitive response on tobacco leaves. They expressed catalase activity but did not express oxidase or acid phosphatase activity or produce indole. All strains grew at 37°C, in 5% NaCl, and reduced nitrate. Pathogenicity of the obtained isolates was tested on 3-week-old healthy potato plants (cv. VR808 and cv. Kiebitz) grown in commercial Baltic Tray Substrate (Hawita) in the greenhouse, as well as on potato tubers of the same varieties. Three potato plant stems per isolate were inoculated by the toothpick piercing method (Duarte et al. 2004) using bacterial suspension (approx. 1 × 108 CFU/ml). Inoculated plants were incubated under plastic bags in a greenhouse at 25 ± 2°C. Blackleg symptoms and stem wilting developed 48 hours after inoculation. No symptoms were observed on plants inoculated with sterile toothpicks dipped in sterile distilled water. The pathogen was re-isolated from symptomatic plants, fulfilling Koch\'s postulates and sequencing of 16S rDNA confirmed the originally isolated pathogen. Three potato tubers per isolate were inoculated by toothpicks dipped in bacterial suspension (approx. 1 × 108 CFU/ml). Inoculated tubers were placed in a sealed plastic container at 25 ± 2°C. Treatment with sterile distilled water was used as a negative control. Softening of the tissue around the inoculation point developed within 48 h from inoculation, and no symptoms developed on the control tubers. For molecular analyses, total DNA of the isolates was extracted using the DNeasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen). The isolates were not detected in diagnostic PCR assays using specific primers Br1F/L1R for the detection of P. brasiliense (Duarte et al. 2004) and primers EXPCCF/EXPCCR for P. catotovorum subsp. carotovorum (Kang et al. 2003). The 16S rDNA PCR amplification was performed using the universal PCR primer pair 27F/1492R (Fredriksson et al. 2013) and followed by Sanger sequencing (Macrogen Europe BV). The BLASTn analysis of sequences (GenBank Accession Numbers MZ048661, MZ048662, and MZ157274) revealed 100% query coverage and 100% identity to the sequences of Pectobacterium punjabense in NCBI (MT242589 and CP038498) isolated from potato in China and Pakistan (Sarfraz et al. 2018), respectively. All three obtained isolates were proposed to belong to Pectobacterium punjabense sp. nov. To further validate the identification, isolate MMZCVR2 of P. punjabense was selected for multilocus sequence analyses of 5 housekeeping genes (gyrA, recA, recN, rpoA and rpoS). The gyrA (MZ161817), recA (MZ161818), recN (MZ161819), rpoA (MZ161820) and rpoS (MZ161821) sequence analysis showed the highest nucleotide identity (99.44 to 100%) with P. punjabense strain SS95 (Sarfraz et al. 2018) previously deposited in NCBI GenBank database. To our knowledge, this is the first report of blackleg and soft rot caused by P. punjabense on potato in Serbia. Pectobacterium punjabense is a newly described species causing soft rot and blackleg disease in potato plants (Sarfraz et al. 2018). Its current geographic distribution is not well-described but important to know since soft rot bacteria are easily transported long distances in latently infected seed tubers and can cause significant economic losses in potato production worldwide.