UNUSUAL FRUIT DISORDERS IN TIRYNTHOS APRICOT

Apricot trees of cv.
Tirynthos grafted onto myrobalan showing decline, low yield and malformed fruits have been observed in Apulia (southern Italy).

Affected plants have small, chlorotic leaves, short internodes and deformed fruits with sunken areas that retain a green colour at ripening.
The trunk is swollen at the graft union which often shows a brown line.
These symptoms begin to appear three years after grafting.

Mechanical transmission tests to herbaceous hosts and serological assays (DAS-ELISA) demonstrated that symptomatic plants were infected by a mixture of prunus necrotic ringspot and prune dwarf ilarviruses and apple chlorotic leafspot closterovirus.

Transmission tests are in progress by grafting Tirynthos and Luizet apricots onto different rootstocks (myrobalan, almond, GF 305 and apricot seedling).

XV International Symposium on Fruit Tree Diseases

B. Di Terlizzi, V. Savino, M. Digiaro

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1992.309.53