Register      Login
Historical Records of Australian Science Historical Records of Australian Science Society
The history of science, pure and applied, in Australia, New Zealand and the southwest Pacific
Shopping Cart: ( empty )
You are here: Home > Journals > HR > HR23011
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
Contents Vol 35(2)

The discovery of gumming disease of sugarcane in Australia

Malcolm J. Ryley https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3699-1240 A *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Centre for Crop Health, University of Southern Queensland, West Street, Toowoomba, Qld 4350, Australia.

* Correspondence to: cropdocs61@gmail.com

Historical Records of Australian Science 35(2) 151-157 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23011
Published online: 23 November 2023

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Sugarcane is one of Australia’s major agricultural industries, with approximately 95% of the crop being grown in Queensland and the remainder in northern New South Wales. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, cane growers in northern New South Wales started to see a new disease that resulted not only in the death of plants but also in difficulties in the extraction of sugar. Theories about the cause abounded, but investigations by the New South Wales vegetable pathologist Nathan Cobb revealed that the disease, previously unknown to the world, was caused by a microbe in the creamy ‘gum’ that could be commonly found in the vascular tissues of affected stalks. He named the organism Bacillus vascularum (now known as Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vasculorum). For some time after, the disease was known as ‘Cobb’s gumming disease of sugarcane’. The Australian bacteriologist Robert Greig-Smith was not convinced that Cobb had conclusively demonstrated that B. vascularum was the culprit, mainly because he did not satisfy Koch’s Postulates. However, the American bacteriologist Erwin Frink Smith came to Cobb’s rescue when he proved beyond doubt that B. vascularum was to blame. The disease is now known simply as ‘gumming disease of sugarcane’.

Keywords: Australia, bacterium, disease, Erwin Smith, Greig-Smith, gumming, Nathan Cobb, sugarcane, Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vasculorum.

References

Anonymous (1891a) Disease in sugar-cane, Northern Star (Lismore), 28 October, 3.

Anonymous (1891b) Sugarcane affected by disease, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 22 October, 5.

Anonymous (1891c) Blight in sugar-cane, Clarence and Richmond Examiner (Grafton), 19 January, 4.

Anonymous (1892a) The disease in sugarcane, The Daily Telegraph, 9 February, 5.

Anonymous (1892b) The visitations in the cane, Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 26 November, 3.

Anonymous (1893) Disease in sugarcane, The Daily Telegraph, 23 June 1893, 5.

Anonymous (1894) Disease in sugarcane, The Telegraph (Brisbane), 21 September, 2.

Anonymous (2022) Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vasculorum (sugarcane gumming disease), Invasive Species Compendium, CAB International, https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/56980, viewed May 2022.

Cobb, N. A. (1893a) The sugarcane disease, Daily Telegraph, 1 August 1893, 6.

Cobb, N. A. (1893b) Disease in sugarcane, The Daily Telegraph, 19 October 1893, 3.

Cobb, N. A. (1893c) Microbe diseases of sugarcane—gumming of cane (Bacillus vascularum): diseases of the sugar-cane plant diseases and their remedies, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 4, 777-799.
| Google Scholar |

Cobb, N. A. (1894) The cause of gumming in sugar-cane, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 5, 683-686.
| Google Scholar |

Cobb, N. A. (1905) Third Report on Gumming of the Sugar-Cane, Division of Pathology and Physiology Bulletin No. 3, Report of Work of the Experiment Station of the Hawaiian Sugar Planter’s Association, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hxj1jc&view=1up&seq=125&q1=GUMMING, viewed May 2022.

Despeissis, J. A. (1892) Sugar-cane disease on the north coast, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 3, 20-22.
| Google Scholar |

Egan, B. (2015) The History of Cane Pest and Disease Control Boards in Queensland, Brian Egan, Chermside, https://elibrary.sugarresearch.com.au/bitstream/handle/11079/15648/History%20of%20Cane%20Pest%20and%20Disease%20Control%20Boards%20in%20Qld%20Egan.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y, viewed June 2022.

Greig-Smith, R. (1902) The gummosis of the sugar-cane (Bac. vascularum, Cobb), Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales, 27, 31-47 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/29995#page/47/mode/1up, viewed August 2022.
| Google Scholar |

Hughes, C. G. (1961) ‘Gumming disease’, in Sugar-cane Diseases of the World VI, eds. J. P. Martin, E. V. Abbott, and C. G. Hughes, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp. 55–71.

Magarey, R. C., and Croft, B J. (1997) Final Report—SRDC Project BS172S Part II—a Review of Yield Losses Caused by Australian and Selected Exotic Sugarcane Diseases, Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations Queensland, Australia, https://elibrary.sugarresearch.com.au/bitstream/handle/11079/831/A%20review%20of%20yield%20losses%20caused%20by%20Australian%20and%20selected%20exotic%20sugarcane%20diseases%20%3A%20SRDC%20final%20report%20BS1725.pdf?sequence=1, viewed August 2022.

McKay, A. (1893) Mr Angus McKay’s report on the sugarcane disease, The Richmond River Herald and Northern Districts Advertiser, 27 January, 6.

North, D. S. (1935) The Gumming Disease of the Sugar Cane, its Dissemination and Control, Agriculture Report No. 10, CSR Co. (extended abstract), Sydney, https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19361100691

Olliff, A. S. (1893) Report on a visit to the Clarence River district for the purpose of ascertaining the nature and extent of the insect ravages in the sugar-cane crops. Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 4, 373-387.
| Google Scholar |

O’Kelly, E. d. P (1892) Report on the sugar-cane disease on the Richmond and Clarence Rivers, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 3, 397-402.
| Google Scholar |

O’Kelly, E. d. P (1893) 'Arrowing' and its relation to the present disorder in the sugar-cane, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 4, 24-30.
| Google Scholar |

Pastourel (1891) The sugar-cane disease, The Richmond River Herald and Northern Districts Advertiser, 11 December, 4.

Ryley, M. J. (2024) Henry Tryon—the true discoverer of the potato brown rot pathogen, Ralstonia solanacearum, Historical Records of Australian Science, 34, y-z.
| Google Scholar |

Samson (1891) The cane disease, Northern Star, 2 December, 2.

Smith, E. F. (1904) Ursache der Cobb’schen krankheit des zuckerrohes, Centralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde und Infektionskrankheiten, 2 Abt. XIII 30, 729-736 https://archive.org/details/centralblattfurbakteriologieparasitenkundeundinfektionskrankheiten.2.abt.band13.1904/page/n769/mode/2up, viewed June 2022.
| Google Scholar |

Smith, E. F. (1914) ‘Cobb’s disease of sugar-cane’, in Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases, vol. 3: Vascular Diseases Continued, Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication 27, vol. 3, pp. 3–71, Press of Gibson Brothers, Washington, DC, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t3hx17g7h&view=1up&seq=21, viewed June 2022.