Tetracycline Therapy Against Phytoplasma Causing Yellowing Disease of Date Palms

Abstract

An outbreak of phytoplasma microorganisms was observed in date palms grown in Kuwait. Phytoplasma are widespread prokaryotic microorganisms that infect palm trees, ornamentals and some horticultural crops. It sometimes causes lethal yellowing diseases in palm trees, which also multiplies in the host plant grown in tissue culture and spread infections by insect vectors. The presence of phytoplasma was detected by using both transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Fluorescence microscopy was used to detect DNA contents of the causal microorganism. Tetracycline therapy was carried out as a further evidence for the presence of the phytoplasma and as an attempt to control the disease. Infected young palms treated with tetracycline‐HCl at early stages of the phytoplasmal infection showed remission of the yellowing symptoms. We show in this work that by injecting the infected young palm trees with tetracycline antibiotic the treated plants were recovered. The use of antibiotic treatment is valuable for the control of yellows disease in date palms especially in the areas where the pathogen is endemic and causes extreme crop losses. Companies producing date palm trees in tissue culture and growers will especially benefit from this knowledge in the development of control strategies for yellow diseases that are caused by phytoplasma.