Discrimination of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria Using an Electronic Nose

An electronic nose (EN) is an array of chemical sensors, where each sensor has only fractional specificity to a wide range of odor molecules, connected with a suitable pattern recognition system. A rapid, sensitive, specific, nondestructive, and easy-to-use technique such as the EN could be used to detect and identify plant pathogenic bacteria in diagnostic clinics and quarantine labs. In this study, an EN discriminated between plant pathogenic bacteria belonging to up to seven species from seven different genera. Accepted for publication 31 March 2004. Published 5 April 2004.