What can we learn from the phenomenon of “recovery”?

“Recovery” has been defined as the spontaneous remission of disease symptoms in plants previously symptomatic. Recovered plants exhibit similar behavior as healthy plants, with the advantage of resistance acquisition towards the disease. The main difficulty to include “recovery” as an integrated measure for phytoplasma disease management consists in the evaluation of the expected rate of spontaneous remission of symptoms under specific environmental conditions. However, in some areas, natural “recovery” phenomenon, combined to vector control, was decisive for phytoplasma disease control.