Profiling of non-pathogenic bacterial population by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in stone fruits

The study was carried out to investigate the status of non-pathogenic bacteria isolated from infected plant tissues in stone fruit orchards including almonds, apricots, cherries, mahaleb, olives and plums in Adıyaman, Diyarbakır and Mardin provinces of Turkey. Surveys were performed in the mentioned provinces between March and August in 2019-2021. Survey studies showed that, 87 samples with typical bacterial disease symptoms were collected from 34 different stone fruit orchards. Hypersensitivity (HR) and host pathogenicity tests were performed following isolation from diseased plant tissues in the samples. A total of 70 isolates, which were found to be non-pathogenic with negative HR and host pathogenicity tests, were definitively diagnosed by MALDI-TOF analysis method. Finally, it was specified that bacteria of Bacillus and Pseudomonas genera were more densely colonized in different tissues of stone fruits. It was concluded that the most concentrated bacteria in the stone fruits was Stenotrophomonas rhizophila with 13 isolates, followed by respectively Bacillus megaterium with 9 isolates, Pantoea agglomerans with 7 isolates, Bacillus pumilus with 6 isolates, Xanthomonas hortorum with 5 isolates, Bacillus mojavensis and Rahnella aquatilis with 3 isolates