The present work aimed to study the culturable diversity of psychrotolerant bacteria persistent in soil under overwintering conditions, evaluate their ability to sustain plant growth and alleviate chilling stress in tomato. Psychrotolerant bacteria were isolated from agricultural field soil samples colleced during winter and then used to study chilling stress alleviation in tomato plants (Solan...

In this study, bacterial strains were isolated from soils from 30 locations of Samcheok, Gangwon province. Of the isolated strains, seven showed potential plant growth promoting and antagonistic activities. Based on cultural and morphological characterization, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing, these strains were identified as Paenibacillus species. All seven strains produced ammonia, cellulase, hyd...

Plants including pepper, red kidney bean, squash, string bean and tomato, as well as weeds with viral symptoms were collected from five districts in Belize over a three year period with the aim of determining the diversity of the begomoviruses present. Sixty five percent of the samples screened via DNA hybridization produced signals indicative of begomovirus infection. Subsequent PCR amplificat...

Atomic force microscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy, and solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance have been used to improve our current knowledge on the molecular characteristics of the biopolyester cutin, the main component of the plant cuticle. After comparison of samples of cutin isolated from young and mature tomato fruit cuticles has been possible to establish different degrees of cross-linking in t...

Natural isolates of Tobacco mild green mosaic virus (TMGMV) fail to infect tomato because the tomato tm-1 protein binds to the replication proteins of TMGMV and prevents RNA replication. Previously, we isolated a TMGMV mutant that overcomes tm-1-mediated resistance and multiplies in tomato plants. Here, we show that the causal mutations in the replication protein gene that abolish the interacti...

Microbial agents of tomato spoilage in Onitsha metropolis, Nigeria were investigated. A total of 80 tomatoes were sampled, out of which 40 were fresh healthy intact tomatoes and the other 40 were spoilt tomatoes sold in 4 local markets within the zone. They were cultured on blood agar, MacConkey agar, tomato juice agar and Sabourand dextrose agar. No organism was isolated from fresh healthy int...