Occurrence of Erwinia amylovora on Insects in a Fire Blight Orchard

In order to screen for natural dissemination of _re blight under _eld conditions\ insects were caught in an exper! imental orchard and assayed on semi!selective agar plates and by BIO!polymerase chain reaction for their con! tamination with Erwinia amylovora\ the causative agent of the bacterial disease[ The pathogen was detected on 04 out of 237 insects collected "3[2)#[ The insects con! taminated with E[ amylovora have di}erent living habits and belong to four di}erent orders "Homoptera\ Coleop! tera\ Hymenoptera and Diptera# and at least eight insect families "Aphididae\ Psyllidae\ Coccinellidae\ Cur! culionidae\ Ichneumonidae\ Formicidae\ Apidae\ and Muscidae# and to other Brachycera[ After contact of insects with E[ amylovora\ the pathogen could survive at least 4 days in:on the green lacewing "Chrysoperla carnea# and 01 days on aphids "Aphis pomi#[