ROUTINE TESTING OF ENGLISH WALNUT MOTHER TREES AND GROUP TESTING OF SEEDS BY ELISA FOR DETECTION OF CHERRY LEAF ROLL VIRUS INFECTION

In Hungary the cherry leaf roll virus /CLRV-WH/ is widespread on English walnut.
To select healthy mother trees and controlling seed lots used in nurseries the working out of a large-scale routine test was necessary.
For this ELISA was the most suitable method.

In the course of working out of mass screening made by ELISA the following were stated:

• the most suitable time to detect the virus is the period of bud break and the preceding one month,

• the highest virus concentration can be found in the terminal buds,

• the virus is not systemic in the tree, it is often localized only in certain buds, therefore on one tree at least 20 buds should be tested,

• in large scale decetion of CLRV-WH group testing can be used applying batch samples of 20 buds,

• in the virus concentration of various parts of stratified germinating seeds there is no significant difference,

• during group testing of seeds the virus can be detected even if the grouped sample of 50 seeds contains only 1 infected seed.

XII International Symposium on Fruit Tree Virus Diseases

M. Kölber, M. Németh, P. Szentiványi

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1983.130.28