Phytopathogenic Mollicutes
SCOPUS
  • Year: 2024
  • Volume: 14
  • Issue: 2

Bamboo witches’ broom in Kerala, India is associated with the presence of a strain of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma cynodontis’

  • Author:
  • Abdulmajeed Sajeena1,*, Kirti Rawat2, Madem Gurivi Reddy3, Govind Pratap Rao2
  • Total Page Count: 6
  • Published Online: Feb 12, 2025
  • Page Number: 105 to 110

1Integrated Farming System Research Station, Kerala Agricultural University, Trivandrum, 695002, Kerala, India

2Division of Plant Pathology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012, India

3Department of Plant Pathology, Agricultural College, Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, Mahanandi-518502, Andhra Pradesh, India

*Corresponding author e-mail: Abdulmajeed Sajeena (sajeenamanjima@gmail.com)

Online published on 12 February, 2025.

Abstract

Witches’ broom, shoot proliferation on nodes and little leaf were observed in bamboo, Dendrocalamus strictus at Integrated Farming System Research Station, Karamana, Trivandrum district, Kerala, India. The symptomatic bamboo samples were tested for phytoplasma presence using universal phytoplasma specific 16S rRNA gene primer pairs P1/P7 and R16F2n/R16R2. Sequence comparison and virtual RFLP analyses of 16S rRNA gene sequence of bamboo phytoplasma strains in the study confirmed the presence of a ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma cynodontis’ strain (16SrXIV-A). This is the first report of phytoplasmas in a bamboo species in Kerala.

Keywords

Bamboo species, Disease, 16SrXIV-A subgroup, Natural reservoirs