Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection, cilt.130, sa.1, ss.177-180, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
In a walnut orchard in Turkey’s Mersin province in the summer of 2021, phytoplasma related symptoms such as abnormal formations in flowers (phyllody), proliferation of shoots, reddish leaves or general yellowing and stunting were observed on Crepis foetida plants. Total nucleic acid from collected plant samples was extracted using CTAB method. The R16F1/R0 and R16F2n/R2 universal primer pairs were used and all symptomatic Crepis plants yielded positive results by nested PCR (nPCR). There were no PCR products found in walnut or asymptomatic Crepis samples. Four PCR products were sequenced, and one was submitted to GenBank (Accession Number: OM681509). The results were confirmed by using BLASTn search, virtual RFLP and phylogenetic analysis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a phytoplasma belongs to pigeon pea witches' broom group (16SrIX) associated with Crepis phyllody disease of C. foetida.