Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #404530
Research Project: Advancing Knowledge of the Biology and Etiology of Bacterial Plant Pathogens Towards Management Strategies

Location: Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research

Title: A grower-supported mail-away dormant potato tuber test for molecular detection of potato virus Y and two other viruses causing tuber necrosis

Author
item Ingram, Jason
item MATTUPALLI, CHAKRADHAR - Washington State University
item CHARKOWSKI, AMY - Colorado State University
item KARASEV, ALEXANDER - University Of Idaho
item Filiatrault, Melanie

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/15/2023
Publication Date: 8/12/2023
Citation: Ingram, J.T., Mattupalli, C., Charkowski, A., Karasev, A., Filiatrault, M.J. 2023. A grower-supported mail-away dormant potato tuber test for molecular detection of potato virus Y and two other viruses causing tuber necrosis. Meeting Abstract. Plant Health.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Potato virus Y (PVY), potato mop-top virus, and tobacco rattle virus severely limit production of healthy seed tubers for United States (US) supply chains. Current seed potato certification in the US relies on post-harvest grow-out procedures that take three months to provide PVY results and delaygrowers’ business management decisions. An alternative mail-away dormant tuber testing approach was conducted in 2021 to assess diagnostic workflows based on reverse-transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) for detecting the three viruses directly from dormant potato tubers. Cooperators from four US states sampled 14,800 potato tubers on Whatman FTAPlantsaver® Cards (FTA). Farm labor provided by the growers, at a cost of about $166 per 400 tubers,sampled four tissue cores from each tuber (stem end, bud end, and two eyes) on FTA cards. Upon assessment of a subset of sampled tubers, 84% were in complete agreement with instructions and97% had only one error in sample position. The FTA cards were then mailed to the laboratory and a 1-step RT-qPCR was conducted to detect the three viruses. Assay results were reported to the growers with a median turnaround time of nine days. The same tubers sampled on FTA cards were grown in a greenhouse and enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were conducted to detect PVY from leaves. Tuber RT-qPCR and leaf ELISA results for PVY had 95% decision agreement. These results suggest RT-qPCR based mail-away dormant potato tuber testing for three necrotic viruses is feasible for wide-scale adoption in the US.