Diagnostic Procedures to Detect Xylella fastidiosa in Nursery Stocks and Consignments of Plants for Planting

Preventive measures for infectious diseases caused by the harmful plant pathogenic bacterium Xylella fastidiosa include inspections and diagnostic tests on imported consignments of plants and in nurseries. Currently, mandatory checks on plant propagating materials are enforced in Europe (EU regulation 2021/1201) for the most susceptible species found in the European outbreaks, and prior to move propagating materials of the “specified plants” from nurseries located in the so-called “demarcated areas”. These requirements imply sampling and laboratory manipulation of a large number of samples, nevertheless plants to be sampled are often small size potted plants. While statistically based methods for inspections and sampling are available, namely the International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures n. 31, validated laboratory procedures to test large volumes of plant materials are lacking. In this work, we optimized two distinct protocols to detect X. fastidiosa in pooled plant materials collected from lots of plants for planting. The first protocol was designed to test in pool few samples (up to 8), the second to process through a single diagnostic test plant material from a high number of samples (up to 225). Accuracy of the newly developed protocols was assessed by pooling at different ratio tissues collected from healthy and infected Polygala myrtifolia, Nerium oleander, Olea europaea, Lavandula stoechas and Prunus avium. Moreover, tests included pools of plantlets of Brassicaceae and Solanaceae artificially inoculated with stem portions of infected periwinkle. Using both protocols, high diagnostic sensitivity values were generated using serological and molecular tests, with qPCR consistently yielding the highest performance values, regardless the host species tested.