Screening of soybean [Glycine max (L.) merrill] lines for reaction to natural field infection and resistant against bacteria foliar diseases

Abstract

Abstract The production of Soybean in Nigeria is still inadequate due to the menace of pests and diseases. The current study was conducted to screen the performance of nineteen newly developed soybean lines that were infected naturally with bacterial diseases, identify promising line(s) with high yield potential and resistance against the diseases. Symptoms of soybean foliar diseases were accessed from the 4-12 week after planting, the resistance level of selected lines was also determined and bacteria isolate were culture and identify through morphological and biochemical tests. Four Bacteria species (Pseudomonas syringae, Xanthomonas spp, Clavibacter michiganensis and Bacillus subtilis) were isolated and identified from disease soybean leaf in this study. Whereas based on the pathogenicity test only two were pathogenic and cause soybean foliar disease (P. syringae and X. spp). Identified soybean lines differed significantly [p ≤ 0.05] in disease incidence and severity for both diseases. TGx 1990-57F, TGx 1990-55F were moderately resistant to bacterial blight and bacterial pustules. The study confirms that bacteria blight and pustule were present in the study area. It is therefore, recommended that the lines identified as moderately resistant to both diseases may help in future studies and evaluation in local hotspots.