Cultivated and wild plantain (Plantago major) as a host of Stolbur phytoplasma in Serbia

Abstract

The wild plantain (Plantago major) is an important medicinal plant. Symptoms suggestive of phytoplasma diseases were observed in infected plantain plants in Serbia. A new disease on P. major has symptoms of reduced leaf size, leaf reddening and crinkling, and occasionally rolling of flowers and early drying up. This disease was found first on the plantain plantation in Pancevo locality, but later has been found in some other localities in Serbia (Kovin, Vrdnik). Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of amplification products of 1.2 kb, obtained in nested PCR with R16F2n/R16R2 primer pair after amplification with P1/16S-Sr primers, in 24 from 26 symptomatic plants indicated the presence of phytoplasma from the 16SrXII-A subgroup. Plantain plants collected from all three affected localities in Serbia were determined to be hosts of this phytoplasma. This is the first report of the natural occurrence of Stolbur phytoplasma in cultivated and wild P. major in Serbia.