Blood disease in bananas caused by Ralstonia syzygii subsp. celebesensis is a bacterial wilt causing significant crop losses in Indonesia and Malaysia. Disease symptoms include wilting of the plant and red-brown vascular staining, internal rot, and discoloration of green banana fruit. There is no known varietal resistance to this disease in the Musa genus, although variation in susceptibility has been observed, with the popular Indonesian cooking banana variety Kepok being highly susceptible. This study established the current geographic distribution of Blood disease in Indonesia and confirmed the pathogenicity of isolates by Koch’s postulates. The long-distance distribution of the disease followed an arbitrary pattern indicative of human-assisted movement of infected banana materials. In contrast, local or short-distance spread radiated from a single infection source, indicative of dispersal by insects and possibly contaminated tools, water, or soil. The rapid expansion of its geographical range makes Blood disease an emerging threat to banana production in Southeast Asia and beyond.

The increasing production of banana is hampered by the spread of banana plant diseases, one of which is caused by a group of bacteria, including those of causing wilt diseases. In Indonesia, blood disease is one of the important banana wilt diseases since loss due to the infection can reach up to 50%. There are numerous publications on the pathogen identification causing banana blood disease based on the molecular approach, however to date, no detailed molecular data are available for the interaction of banana host plant against the pathogen. Here, we present three raw data sets of the total RNA-seq from the inoculated Musa balbisiana cutivar kepok (ABB genome) inoculated with Ralstonia syzigii subsp. celebesensis, Ralstonia solanacearum and mock. The data provide essential knowledge for differentiating the banana response against pathogen, reveal pathogenesis-related genes and gene functions in the plant system, and research development to design blood disease-resistance of banana as one of the management strategies. Raw reads of RNA-seq data can be found in NCBI's Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database with the accession number of SRR10547839 (RSC), SRR10547840 (RS), and SRR10547841 (Mock).

The bacterium Ralstonia syzygii subsp. celebesensis causes Blood disease of banana, a vascular wilt of economic significance in Indonesia and Malaysia. Blood disease has expanded its geographic range in the last 20 years and is an emerging threat to Southeast Asian banana production. Many aspects of the disease cycle and biology are not well understood, including the ability of different parts of the female and male inflorescence of banana to act as infection courts. This study confirms that the banana varieties of Cavendish, and Kepok ‘Kuning’ are susceptible to Blood disease and that an inoculum concentration of 10² CFU/ml of R. syzygii subsp. celebesensis is adequate to initiate disease after pseudostem inoculation. Data show that infection occurs through both the male and female parts of a banana inflorescence and the rachis when snapped to remove the male bell. The infection courts are the female flowers, the male bell bract scar, the male bell flower cushion, the snapped rachis, and deflowered fingers. The location of these infection courts concurs with the dye studies demonstrating that dye externally applied to these plants parts enters the plant vascular system. Thus, the hypothesis is supported that infection of R. syzygii subsp. celebesensis occurs through open xylem vessels of the male and female parts of the banana inflorescence.

Mungbean yellow mosaic India virus (MYMIV, Begomovirus vignaradiataindiaense, Genus Begomovirus) is well understood to incite chlorosis on mung bean (Vigna radiata) and yard long bean (V. unguiculata ssp. sesquipedalis). However, presence of the virus in mung bean in Indonesia has not been studied. Furthermore, leaf deformation symptoms, typical of phytoplasma disease, are also observed occasionally on both horticultural species. On February 2025, two yard long bean and two mung bean samples showing chlorosis, mosaic, and small leaf as well as non-symptomatic yard long bean and mung bean, one sample respectively, were collected in Nganjuk Regency, East Java Province. The samples were tested by PCR using Krusty/Homer and SPG1/SPG2 universal primers for begomoviruses, and the nested R16mF2/R16mR2 and R16F2n/R16R2 universal primers for phytoplasmas detection. One mung bean (no. 119) and one yard long bean (no. 419) were shown to be mixed-infected by begomovirus and phytoplasma. One mung bean (no. 219) was positive for phytoplasma only. One yard long bean (no. 519) and both non-symptomatic samples (no. 319 and 619) were negative for both pathogens. BLAST and phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that both begomovirus isolates are MYMIV, and the three phytoplasma strains are associated with the ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia’ (16SrII-A group, peanut witches'-broom). This research reported the first occurrences of MYMIV in mung bean and mixed infection of MYMIV and phytoplasma in mung bean and yard long bean in Indonesia, to the best of our knowledge. Further surveys are necessary to study both pathogens distribution among legumes in the country.