Occurrence, Distribution and Molecular Characterization of Phytoplasma Infecting Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) from Tamil Nadu

Latha T K S,Rajamanickam S,Karthikeyan G,Prabakar K

doi:10.29321/maj.10.000483

Abstract

Phytoplasma is an obligate prokaryote infecting a wide array of crops such as urdbean, sesame, brinjal and many other vegetable crops in India. Several workers have noticed the recent outbreak of phytoplasma disease in several pulse crops. A study was conducted to identify the phytoplasma infection in chickpea from Tamil Nadu. The average disease incidence due to phytoplasma was recorded with a range of 5-20% under field condition. The infected plants produced symptoms including stunting of plants, bushy appearance, reduced leaf size, chlorosis and reddening of infected leaves. The association of phytoplasma with these symptoms was confirmed by nested PCR assay using the universal primers P1/P7 and R16F2n/R16R2. The infected samples were amplified with an amplicon size of 1.2 kb and sequence analysis showed more than 99% similarity with phytoplasma belongs to Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia. Phylogenetic analysis of nucleotide sequences confirmed the chickpea phyllody phytoplasma forms a single subgroup with other Indian isolates of various crops.

Highlights

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), one of the important pulse crops, belongs to the family fabaceae grown in several countries, accounting total share of 50% of the total pulse crops
The major chickpea growing states are Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan, Maharashtra,Uttar Pradesh (UP), Andhra Pradesh (AP), Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand.These states contribute more than 95% of the chickpea production in India (Pradipa et al, 2018; Gurivi Reddy et al, 2021).In Tamil Nadu, the crop is cultivated in districts of Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Dindigul, Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Erode, Salem, Namakkal, Perambalur, Tiruchirappali, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukkudi, Tirunelveli and Dharmapuri (Pradipa et al, 2018)
The maximum incidence of phytoplasma was recorded in the research plot of Pulse Department, TNAU, Coimbatore, which accounted for 20% of infection. This was followed by Dharapuram area accounted 17% of infection.The infected plants expressed the symptoms including stunting of plants, bushy appearance, reduced leaf size, chlorosis and reddening of infected leaves (Fig 1)

Summary

Introduction

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), one of the important pulse crops, belongs to the family fabaceae grown in several countries, accounting total share of 50% of the total pulse crops. India represents the largest producer of chickpea, accounting for around 70% of the global production. It contains a rich source of protein and is consumed as dal by people worldwide. The crop is cultivated with an area of 9.93 Mha and a productivity of 935.34 kg/ha in India (Merga and Haji, 2019). The major chickpea growing states are Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan, Maharashtra,Uttar Pradesh (UP), Andhra Pradesh (AP), Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand.These states contribute more than 95% of the chickpea production in India (Pradipa et al, 2018; Gurivi Reddy et al, 2021).In Tamil Nadu, the crop is cultivated in districts of Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Dindigul, Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Erode, Salem, Namakkal, Perambalur, Tiruchirappali, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukkudi, Tirunelveli and Dharmapuri (Pradipa et al, 2018). The crop is infected by several fungal and bacterial diseases, including dry root rot, Fusarium wilt, Colletotrichum stem blight and Botrytis grey

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