ABSTRACT
Department of Agriculture [USDA] researcher who is largely thought of as the father of phytobacteriology) catalogued diseases in a quarter of the plant families known at the time. He predicted that bacterial diseases would be found on all plant families and maybe even on all plant species. However, the diseases that attract the most attention are those that cause damage at economically or ecologically important levels. Although the field of phytobacteriology is well over 100 years old, every year new bacterial diseases of important plants are described, creating a great deal of detective work for phytobacteriologists who want to find out “who done it?” (e.g., who ruined the broccoli?).
