A healthy, latently infected, diseased (HLD) plant model for botanical epidemics was defined for tomato bacterial canker (TBC) caused by the pathogenic plant bacteria, Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis (Cmm). To estimate the infection probability parameter, inoculation experiments were conducted in which it was assumed that infection is transferred to healthy plants through contaminated scissors used to cut symptomless infected plants. The approximate concentration of Cmm in symptomless infected plants was 1 × 106 cells/mL, and the probability of infection of healthy tomato plants was approximately 0.75 due to cutting with scissors soaked in a cell suspension of Cmm at 1 × 106 cells/mL. Three different HLD models were developed by changing some parameters, and the D curve calculated by the developed HLD model A was quite similar to the curve of the proportion of diseased plants observed in fields that had a severe disease incidence. Under a simulation of disease incidence using this model, the basic reproduction number (R0) was 2.6. However, if the infected scissors were disinfected using ethanol, R0 was estimated as 0.3. The HLD model for TBC can be used to simulate the increasing number of diseased plants and the term of disease incidence.
Keywords: Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis; HLD model; SIR model; disinfection of pruning shears; tomato bacterial canker.