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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Corvallis, Oregon » Horticultural Crops Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #192019

Title: CHARACTERIZATION AND RECENT ADVANCES IN DETECTION OF STRAWBERRY VIRUSES

Author
item Martin, Robert
item TZANETAKIS, I - OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: Plant Disease
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/8/2006
Publication Date: 3/25/2006
Citation: Martin, R.R., Tzanetakis, I.E. 2006. Characterization and recent advances in detection of strawberry viruses. Plant Disease. 90:384-396.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Many of the virus diseases of strawberry were described based upon symptoms they produced when grafted onto clones of F. vesca and F. virginiana plants. Recently, significant progress has been made in the molecular characterization of the aphid-borne viruses, the identification and characterization of several whitefly-borne viruses, and in the molecular characterization of viruses associated with several of the ‘graft-transmissible virus-like diseases’ of strawberry. Currently, molecular-based RT-PCR detection methods are available for most of the viruses known to infect strawberry. The symptoms induced by the viruses and the advances in the detection of strawberry viruses are reviewed here. Also, the application of these recently developed diagnostic tests in the characterization of the cause of recent outbreaks of a decline disorder in strawberry in western U. S. and Canada is described. This disorder, in which plants develop a reddish coloration of the leaves, the roots appear to stop growing, the plants get progressively weaker and in some cases the plants die, has been observed in a number of cultivars in California. A similar decline also has been observed in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia in cultivars such as ‘Totem’, ‘Rainier’, ‘Puget Reliance’ and ‘Puget Beauty’. The viruses involved in the Pacific Northwest are aphid-transmitted while in California aphid and whitefly transmitted viruses are important in the decline symptoms. This matches well with the vectors present in the two areas.