Enset (Ensete ventricosum Welw. Cheesman) is an important food crop for over 20% of the Ethiopian population living in the southern and southwestern parts of the country. Enset farmers commonly grow combinations of clones in fields, but each clone is grown for its specific use. A large number of enset clones collected from the Sidama, Gurage, Kembata Tembaro and Hadyia zones were assessed for resistance/tolerance to enset bacterial wilt, Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum (Xcm) at the

The transmission of enset bacterial wilt with contaminated knives and the survival of the causal agent in soil and enset plant debris was studied at the Awassa Agricultural Research Center, Awassa, Ethiopia. Contaminated knives were found to transmit the pathogen from infected to healthy plants. Disease symptoms were recorded within 15 and 21 days after inoculation on plants inoculated at 6 and 12 months after transplanting, respectively. Enset plants inoculated at 24 and 36 months after transplanting showed initial wilt symptoms 30 days after inoculation. Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum (Xcm) isolates were observed to survive in the soil up to 9 days. Thereafter the bacteria population reduced to a level that could not initiate infection. Xcm was also observed to survive in pruned leaf petioles and leaf sheaths for at least 3 months.

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