Enhancing Tomato Plant Defense Mechanisms Against Bacterial Speck Disease: Insights into the Role of Chitooligosaccharides and Oligogalacturonides Elicitation

Pseudomonas syringae, the causal agent of the bacterial speck disease, infects Solanum lycopersicum leaves and fruits and reduces crop yield. Since antibiotics use is forbidden in crop protection, one solution apart copper could be the use of elicitors that stimulate the plant innate immune system to fight bacteria. Here we investigated the protection conferred to tomato plants against the hemi-biotroph bacteria P. syringae pv. tomato by leaf spraying of a soluble complex of chitooligosaccharides and oligogalacturonides (COS-OGA).