Incidence of Strawberry important virus diseases in Guilan and Mazandaran Provinces

According to the importance of strawberry cultivation in Guilan and Mazandaran provinces, virus diseases of strawberry were studied in 2013. Totally 422 and 223 random and symptomatic leaf samples, respectively, were collected from strawberry fields in Rashat, Someh-sara and Sanghar (Guilan province) and Babolsar, Joibar and Behshahr (Mazandaran province). Samples were tested for Arabis mosaic virus-ArMV, Raspberry ringspot virus-RpRSV, Tomato ringspot virus-ToRSV, Strawberry latent ringspot virus-SLRSV, Strawberry crinkle virus-SCV, Strawberry mild yellow edge virus-SMYEV, and Strawberry mottle virus-SMoV infection by double antibody sandwich-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) using specific antibodies. Results showed that 32.3 and 13.7 % of symptomatic and random samples, respectively, were positive in ELISA at least with one virus. Results of host range studies using isolates of ArMV, RpRSV, ToRSV and SLRSV nepoviruses obtained in this study were consistent with the previously reported descriptions of these viruses. Molecular detection of SMoV and SMYEV using specific primers in RT-PCR assays resulted to amplification of 630 and 860 bp DNA fragment, respectively. Nucleotide sequences of PCR amplicons of two Iranian SMoV isolates showed highest similarity (97%) with a SMoV isolate (SMoV1278) from the Netherlands (Acc. No. AJ496145) and PCR amplicons obtained from three Iranian SMYEV isolates showed the highest similarity (99%) with SMYEV D/M110 isolate from Germany (Acc. No. AJ577352). This is the first report on occurrence of above mentioned viruses on strawberry in Iran.