‘Candidatus Phytoplasma pyri’ detection in symptomatic nectarine and peach trees in northern Israel

Abstract

Symptoms resembling those associated with European stone fruit yellows reported from Europe, including leaf discoloration and early leaf defoliation, were observed in several nectarine and peach orchards in northern Israel. A wide survey which included 20 orchards revealed that the symptomatic trees were present in all the surveyed orchards, varying in incidences from sporadic and up to 26% of the trees in the orchard. Nested-PCR and amplicon sequencing analyses of multiple samples revealed that the observed symptoms were associated with ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma pyri’, 16SrX-C subgroup presence. Interestingly, this subgroup is known to be associated primarily with pear decline disease, however, results clearly showed that in Israel ‘Ca. P. pyri’ is widely spread in nectarine and presumably is leading to symptoms resembling those of European stone fruit yellows.