First Report of Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus in Tomato in South Georgia

Abstract

In October 1998, symptoms characteristic of tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) were observed on fresh market tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) in four production fields, two in Decatur County, Georgia, and two in Gadsden County, Florida. Symptoms observed were plant stunting, reduced leaf size, yellow leaf margins, and mottling. The incidence of symptomatic plants was less than 1% in all fields examined. In most cases, symptoms were observed only on the upper portion of plants, suggesting these plants had been infected by secondary spread from an unknown source. Nuclear inclusions characteristic of geminiviruses were observed by light microscopy in leaf tissue from symptomatic plants (1). To identify the geminivirus, total DNA from infected plants was extracted from six symptomatic tomato plants (two from Georgia and four from Florida) for polymerase chain reaction (PCR; J. E. Polston, personal communication). DNA was amplified with geminivirus DNA A degenerate primer set PAL1v1978 and PAR1c496 (2) from these extracts in addition to extracts from a known TYLCV-infected, a tomato mottle virus (ToMoV)-infected, and a healthy tomato plant. A PCR product of 1.4 kb was obtained from plants with TYLCV-like symptoms, while a 1.4-kb product and a 1.1-kb product were obtained from extracts of the known TYLCV-infected and ToMoV-infected tomato plants, respectively. No PCR product was obtained from extracts of healthy tomato plants. The 1.4-kb PCR products from one Georgia sample and one Florida sample were compared with those of TYLCV and ToMoV by restriction enzyme (RE) digestion with EcoRI and ClaI. The RE pattern of the 1.4-kb fragment from both samples was identical to the RE pattern of TYLCV and different from that of ToMoV. Adult and immature whiteflies collected from the fields where TYLCV was found were identified as Bemisia tabaci, the vector of TYLCV, but the biotype was not established. This report of TYLCV in south Georgia and north Florida extends the geographic range of TYLCV in the U.S. northward approximately 100 km. Georgia is the second state in which TYLCV was found since its initial detection in south Florida in July 1997 (J. E. Polston, personal communication). Monitoring of silverleaf whitefly populations and detection of TYLCV on alternate hosts will continue in order to estimate the potential impact of this virus on south Georgia and north Florida agriculture. References: (1) R. G. Christie and J. R. Edwardson. Plant Dis. 70:273, 1986, (2) M. R. Rojas et al. Plant Dis. 77:340, 1993.

Ongoing geographical spread of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus

“…From there, TYLCV quickly spread to the USA, where it was identified in Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina in the mid1990s (Polston et al, 1995), then in Florida (Polston and Anderson, 1997), Georgia (Momol et al, 1999), Mississippi (Ingram and Henn, 2001) and in Central America (Mexico) (Ascencio-Ibáñez et al, 1999;Banuelos-Hernandez et al, 2012;Brown and Idris, 2006). Other independent introductions of TYLCV into the Caribbean likely occurred when TYLCV-IL moved from East-Asia between 2006 and 2011 (Figs.…”

Characterisation of a Quantitative Resistance to Vector Transmission of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus in Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium

“…In recent years, the Old World monopartite begomovirus Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) (Geminiviridae) has spread worldwide (Nakhla et al, 1994;Pico et al, 1996;Momol et al, 1999;Navas-Castillo et al, 1999;Moriones and Navas-Castillo, 2000). It has also reached Re´union island (Peterschmitt et al, 1999) situated in the southwestern part of the Indian Ocean, where it has become the first limiting factor for production both in the fields and in greenhouses.…”

Multiple Introductions of the Old World Begomovirus Tomato yellow leaf curl virus into the New World

“…By contrast, most of the sequences isolated from the United States have been found near the Caribbean (e.g., Florida [34], Louisiana [45], Georgia [22], and Mississippi [15]), even though the virus has recently been identified in western states, such as California and Arizona (14,38). In all three trees, the sequences from eastern Mexico, the eastern United States, and the Caribbean grouped together, forming an eastern North America and Caribbean (ENAC) clade, albeit with strong support in the CP gene only (bootstrap values of 51% [ Fig.…”