Infection Conditions and Factors of Konjac’s Soft-rot Erwinia Bacterium

Abstract:

Amorphophallus konjac, rich in konjac glucomannan and many other active components, has been used widely in food, medicine and biochemical field. However, konjac diseases caused by Erwinia bacterium become more and more serious, which is a devastating catastrophe to konjac production. Therefore, it is necessary to study the pathogenesis of konjac’s soft rot disease. In the present study, it mainly focused on the infection conditions and factors of the Erwinia bacterium. The main results showed that the appropriate temperature and humidity for infection was 25oC-30oC and 90%-95%, respectively. When the konjac was badly decomposed, the activities of cell wall-degrading enzymes including pectinase and cellulase increased rapidly, which reached the maximum value of 1.2473 U/mg on the 6 days and 1.0813 U/mg on the 9 days, respectively. The results indicated that the pectinase and cellulase were both important during the infection.