Eighty‐five accessions of 33 species ofAlliumwere screened for susceptibility to foliar bacterial soft rot caused byPseudomonas marginalis(Brown 1918) Stevens 1925 andP. viridiflava(Burkholder 1930) Dowson 1939. Plants grown in a greenhouse were wounded then co‐inoculated with cell suspensions ofP. marginalis and P. viridiflava. A. cepa’Pukekohe Longkeeper’ was highly susceptible to foliage soft rot. Mean disease scores (0 = no disease; 5 = severe soft rot) of the otherAlliumaccessions ranged from 0 (an accessionof A. sativum) to 4.9 (A.fistulosum’White Lisbon'). Statistically significant differences in mean disease scores were detected between accessions of individualAlliumspp. and between differentAlliumspp.