Abstract
The sheath brown rot is widely distributed and is the most important bacterial disease of rice plants in Hokkaido. The causal organism has been considered to be Pseudomonas marginalis (Brown) Stevens. The reexamination of the characteristics of this pathogen, however, elucidated that it differed in several characters from P. marginalis isolated from chinese cabbage and garlic. They were different each other in the bacteriological characters such as levan and 2-ketogluconate production, β-glucosidase and pectinase activities, acid production from sucrose, sorbitol, inositol, and other sugars, the host range, and serological relationships. Since no species resembling to this causal bacterium has been reported, we propose to name it Pseudomonas fuscovaginae A. Tanii, K. Miyajima et T. Akita sp. nov., on the basis of the characteristic sheath rot of rice plants.
