Editing Fire blight (section)

==History==
Experiments in the early 1800s demonstrated that ''E. amylovora'' caused disease in plants, the first time that this could be shown. ''E. amylovora'' was found by Fritz Klement, a German scientist in 1910.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}{{Clarify|reason=Phrasing|date=December 2020}} It is generally accepted{{By whom|date=December 2020}} that this destructive crop bacterium initially originated in North America. Today, ''E. amylovora'' can currently be found in all the provinces of Canada, as well as in some parts of the United States of America, including [[Alabama]], [[California]], [[Colorado]], [[Connecticut]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], [[Illinois]], [[Maine]], [[Maryland]], [[Massachusetts]], [[Michigan]], [[New York (state)|New York]], [[North Carolina]], [[Ohio]], [[Oregon]], [[Pennsylvania]], [[Texas]], [[Utah]], [[Virginia]], [[Washington (state)|Washington]], [[West Virginia]] and [[Wisconsin]]. In the Americas it also occurs in other countries including, but not limited to, [[Mexico]] and [[Bermuda]]. On the African continent, ''E. amylovora'' has been confirmed in [[Egypt]].{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

It is believed that the pathogen was first introduced into [[Northern Europe]] in the 1950s through fruit containers, contaminated with bacterial ooze, imported from the USA.<ref name="Billing&Berrie2002">{{cite journal |last1=Billing |first1=E. |last2=Berrie |first2=A.M. |title=A Re-Examination of Fire Blight Epidemiology in England |journal=Acta Horticulturae |date=November 2002 |issue=590 |pages=61–67 |doi=10.17660/ActaHortic.2002.590.6}}</ref> During the 1950s-1960s, ''E. amylovora'' spread through much of Northern Europe. Initially large areas of Germany and France seemed untouched by fireblight, but the disease, and ''E. amylovora,'' were discovered in the later 1990s in Germany. In the 1980s the bacterium was found in isolated regions in the Eastern Mediterranean and from the years 1995-1996 cases of fireblight began to be reported in countries such as [[Hungary]], [[Romania]], Northern [[Italy]] and Northern [[Spain]].{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}