Abstract
Lethal Yellowing disease locally called Cape Saint Paul wilt disease (CSPWD) is the bane of the coconut industry in Ghana and is caused by a phytoplasma. In Ghana, there are areas where the disease has re-infected re-plantings long after decimating all the palms in the area. This brings to the fore the possibility of alternate hosts in the spread of the disease because the pathogen is an obligate parasite. In this work, a number of plants were screened for their host status to the CSPWD pathogen. The presence of phytoplasmas in these plants was tested by polymerase chain reaction analysis using universal phytoplasma primers P1/P7 and CSPWD-specific primers G813/GAKSR. Although Desmodium adscendens tested positive to the CSPWD-specific primers, cloning and sequencing did not confirm it as an alternate host. The identification of alternate hosts will help us to evolve sound control strategies against the spread of the disease.
Highlights
The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera L.) is considered the most important crop along the coastal belt of West Africa and can be grown in poor sandy salt-loaded soils where very few or no other crop would survive [1, 2]
When the specific primers G813/GAKSR were applied to the positive samples from the P1/P7 test, only the D. adscendeus samples were amplified at the expected size of 0.9 kb; when restriction digestion was carried out on
G813/GAKSR PCR products of D. adscendeus samples, RSA 1 did not produce the expected fragment sizes of 498, 311 and 21 kb; Hind III and EcoR1 produced fragments corresponding to the profile of the Cape Saint Paul wilt disease (CSPWD) phytoplasma of the expected size 855 kb
Summary
The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera L.) is considered the most important crop along the coastal belt of West Africa and can be grown (with minimal capital outlay) in poor sandy salt-loaded soils where very few or no other crop would survive [1, 2]. The disease has brought great distress to several rural coastal communities engaged in the coconut industry in Ghana, leaving them without a sustainable source of livelihood [6]. Phytoplasmas cannot be cultured in vitro, Abstract: Lethal Yellowing disease locally called Cape Saint Paul wilt disease (CSPWD) is the bane of the coconut industry in Ghana and is caused by a phytoplasma. In Ghana, there are areas where the disease has re-infected re-plantings long after decimating all the palms in the area. This brings to the fore the possibility of alternate hosts in the spread of the disease because the pathogen is an obligate parasite.
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