Crown gall: economic importance and control.

Many plants of economic importance are possible hosts for Agrobacterium tumefaciens, the causal organism of the crown gall tumor disease. Damage has been reported on stone fruit (Australia), vineyard (Hungary, Bulgaria), lettuce (Brasil) ... In Western-Europe, crown gall seems to be of less economic importance for plants growing in the open air. However, plants cultivated in greenhouses have a greater chance to be tumorized, because of the more favourable circumstances for tumor induction. Modern treatments are based on the inactivation or killing of the tumorigenic organism at the time of the wounding of the host plants.