OCCURRENCE AND IDENTIFICATION OF ASTER YELLOWS RELATED PHYTOPLASMA IN STRAWBERRY IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA

Symptoms typical of phytoplasma diseases were observed on ‘Mara des Bois’, ‘Selva’, ‘Evita’, ‘Senga Sengana’, ‘Venta’, ‘Tango’ cultivars, and clone ‘97093’ of strawberry plants growing in commercial and experimental fields in Poland and Lithuania.
Plants were assessed for phytoplasma infection by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primed by phytoplasma universal primer pairs R16F2n/R2 and specific primer pairs R16(I)F1/R1 for amplification of phytoplasma 16S rDNA (16S rRNA gene) sequences.
RFLP analysis using MseI, HhaI and HpaII restriction endonucleases were carried out to identify the causal agents of diseases.
The purified PCR products of nested PCR were also sequenced.
RFLP analysis of the R16(I)F1/R1 amplified fragments and sequencing analysis revealed that strawberry plants studied were infected with phytoplasmas belonging to three different sub-groups of the Aster yellows group: 16SrI-A, -B and -R.

V International Strawberry Symposium

M. Cieslinska, B. Komorowska, J. Stankiene

Strawberry, phytoplasma, PCR, RFLP, sequencing

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2006.708.22