Fruit Crop Diseases

Sharka

Plum Pox Potyvirus (PPV) is the agent of the Sharka disease on stone fruit (Prunus). Since the 1960ies, this disease spreads continuously in German plum orchards, and became thus the most important virus disease in stone fruit growing regions. Due to a highly efficient transmission of this virus by aphids, all important fruit growing areas are highly infested by Sharka. The disease severely affects fruit quality, and the growth of the tree may be reduced, leading to economically important losses of production. The traditionally most important German cultivar, "Deutsche Hauszwetsche", is highly susceptible, and at present an economically sustainable production is not possible anymore. The only solution would be the use of PPV-resistant plant material. Despite intensive research for natural resistances, only one resistant cultivar has been commercialized up to now. For this, the use of genetic engineering is the most promising way to develop a wide spectrum of PPV- resistant cultivars. At AlPlanta-IPR, protocols for regeneration and transformation are developed for different plum genotypes in order to introduce PPV- resistance- inducing genes into economically important cultivars without changing other plant characteristics. The actual resistance strategy is based on the induction of the gene silencing mechanism in order to prevent expression of heterologous proteins in plum. During this work also the genetic variability of PPV strains in Germany has been studied. For this, detection methods have been improved. PPV-M strains have been detected in Southwest German fruit growing region for the first time.

Sharka symptoms on plum


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