European Stone Fruit Yellows

European Stone Fruit Yellows (ESFY) is a quarantine disease which is spread in all Middle and Southern European Stone fruit growing regions. ESFY is caused by a specific phytoplasma type, the Candidatus Phytoplasma prunorum (European stone fruit yellows (ESFY) phytoplasma. Infection of susceptible Prunus cultivars, such as apricot (P. armeniaca), Japanese plum (P. salicina) and peach (P. persica), leads to a rapid decline and thus to a high economic loss. Typical symptoms are early budbreak in spring (Fig. 1) and conical, chlorotic leaf roll in summer (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1 Early budbreak on peach

Fig. 2 Conical, chlorotic leaf roll on apricot

Again, this phytoplasma disease is vectored by a psyllid species: Cacopsylla pruni (Fig. 3) work at AlPlanta aimed to identify Cacopsylla pruni also as vector for ESFY phytoplasmas in Germany. During these studies, the transmission parameters will be determined under controlled conditions, and the population dynamics of this species will be investigated in commercial orchards as well as in wild Prunus habitats. These results should contribute to develop control strategies against a further spread of this disease.

Fig. 3 Cacopsylla pruni

The folloing projects are running at present on this subject: EUREKA "Development of efficient control strategies against psyllid species vectoring European fruit tree phytoplasma "

ProInno II "Development of control strategies aganist European Stone fruit Yellows on apricot and peach".
EUREKA "Development of efficient control strategies against psyllid species vectoring European fruit tree phytoplasma"

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