ABSTRACT
Gumming continues to be a threat to some countries, particularly the Mascarene Islands that comprise Mauritius and Reunion. These two countries have a breeding programme in place to develop resistant varieties owing to the recurrence of outbreaks. Three outbreaks have been recorded in Mauritius: prior to the 1930s, in 1964 and in 1980. Different races (1, 2 and 3) were identified as the cause of the epidemics (Ricaud and Autrey, 1989). Peros et al. (1994) recognized three types of the gumming bacterium in Reunion and called them, A, B and C.
