First Report of the Natural Occurrence of  Phyllody Disease of Sesame in Syria

Salah Eddin Khabbaz; Munir Alnabhan; Marwa  Arafeh

Volume : II, Issue : X, October - 2013

First Report of the Natural Occurrence of Phyllody Disease of Sesame in Syria

Salah Eddin Khabbaz, Munir Alnabhan, Marwa Arafeh

Abstract :

Survey of sesame fields in Hama province of Syria was done during June to October 2010, wherein most of the fields showed typical phyllody symptoms and the incidence was varied between (7–66 %). Different types of phyllody disease symptoms viz., floral virescence, phyllody, Witches oom, formation of dark exudates on floral parts and yellowing, shoot apex fasciation, and short internodes with twisted and reduced leaves were observed. Orosius albicinctus D. was found as the most predominant insect species in most infected sesame fields, which is known to play an important role in transmitting the phytoplasma. Dienes� stain of leaves and stems sections of sesame tissue plants revealed the presence of regularly distributed dark blue areas in the phloem cells of stem sections of infected plants, which was absent in the healthy plants. Total DNA was extracted from symptomatic and non–symptomatic tissues and direct PCR was carried out using universal primers P1/P6 followed by nested PCR with specific primers R16F2n/R16R2 for 16SrRNA gene. Amplification of 1800 and 1250 bp from the phyllody infected plants confirmed the phyllody disease in the infected samples of sesame which was absent in the healthy samples