"A. citrulli" causes disease in the Cucurbitaceae family, with the most significant losses in melon and watermelon. It also affects pumpkin, zucchini and cucumber but these are not as economically devastated by fruit blotch as the melons. "A. citrulli’s" economic hosts are cucurbits, but the bacteria can also infect volunteer seedlings of other families. This makes it easier for the pathogen to spread. Symptoms of melon with BFB include water soaked lesions on cotyledons, and hypocotyls, leading to collapse and death. Lesions will look necrotic and may be near veins. On fruit, water soaked lesions will be small and irregular (they average 1 cm diameter and may be sunken) but then progress through the rind. The fruit then decays and cracks when the pathogen causes necrosis. These lesions open the plant to secondary infections as well. "A. citrulli" then colonizes the pulp, eventually allowing the seed to become contaminated. On adult leaves, the symptoms appear the same as the ones left by other abiotic or biotic stressors so diagnosis is not as straight forward. They include large irregular leaf lesions which are brown to black in watermelon and reddish brown in melon. Bacterial fruit blotch lesions spread along main midrib in adult leaves.

Hosts and symptoms
Disease cycle
Management
Environment