Estación Experimental Santa Catalina, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIAP), Departamento Nacional de Biotecnología y Departamento Nacional de Protección Vegetal, Quito, Ecuador
In 2013 potato purple top symptoms appeared in Ecuador affecting potato crops, since then the potato production has been decreasing. In 2015 started the molecular analyses to identify the possible pathogen/s involved. Amplification with primers targeting as agent of this potato purple top diverse possible agents were used without obtaining clear results. Only in 2018 a phytoplasma of the subgroup 16SrI-F was detected and identified in the symptomatic plants. In the late 2018 the presence of the potato psyllid Bactericera cockerelli was for the first time observed in Ecuador and the hypothesis is that it might be involved in the purple top disease spreading. Several trials were performed to corroborate the appearance of the symptoms when potato psyllids are present. No ‘Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum’ has been found in plant potato samples or potato psyllids so far.
Phytoplasma, zebra chip, Bactericera cockerelli, PCR
