Production of virus-free citrus varieties in Greece-Preliminary experimental results

• Published in: Phytopathologia mediterranea 2009-08, Vol.48 (2), p.322-322
• Main Authors: Voloudakis, A E, Kapari-Isaia, T, Koutsioumari, E M, Kyriakopoulou, P E, Agorastou, T, Magripis, G, Kyriakou, A, Papayiannis, L, Samouel, S
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Citrus; Viroids
• ISSN: 0031-9465

Citriculture, a very important industry for Greece, is subjected to serious graft-transmitted diseases (of virus and viroid origin), mainly due to the lack of a respective certification program for citrus propagative material and the use of scions from mother trees of doubtful health. For this reason, a "clean stock" program was recently initiated for selected citrus varieties cultivated in Greece, using the in vitro micrografting technique. The initial material derived from the citrus collection of Poros Arboricultural Station and the Ioannis Stamatakos nurseries in Sparta area, from trees of grape-fruit (Shambar, Star Ruby), lemon (Adamopoulou, Vakalou, Zambetaki, Interdonato, Nouvel Athos, Verna), mandarin (Clementine of Poros, Chiotiko, Clasuelina, Encore, Marisol, Page, Tardivo di Ciaculli, Clementine SRA-63, Nova) and orange (Valencia of Poros, Late Navel of Argos, Moro, Navelate, Salustiana, Valencia Olinda, Navelina, Newhall, Washington navel). Young seedlings of citranges and citrumelo were used as micrografting rootstocks. Up to now, at the Agricultural University of Athens 150 micrografting events (19 varieties) have given 22 plants at the tube stage, whereas at the Agricultural Research Institute in Cyprus four (4) of their micrografted plants have already been potted. For biological indexing, complementing the laboratory detection methods (ELISA and RT-PCR), the newly developed in vitro indexing method will be employed, requiring shorter time for detection as opposed to the classical indexing. As a result, citrus selected varieties free of their original infection are expected to be obtained faster.