Abstract

Muhammad Nasir, Syed Sajjid Hussain Zaidi, Asia Batool, Mumtaz Hussain, Babar Iqbal,Muhammad Sajjad, Waseem Abbas and Muhammad Makky Javed

Potato leaves samples of different potato plantlets of three varieties (Cardinal, Desiree, Diamant) produced through tissue culture, were collected from incubation room, glass houses, tunnels (Faisalabad and Murree) and field and tested against major potato viruses through ELISA. 537 out of 6581 samples were infected with different potato viruses. Maximum incidence was of PVX (4.51%) whereas 1.21% of PVY, 0.41% of PLRV, 1.52% of PVS, 0.39% of PVM and incidence of PVA was 0.11% in all tissue cultured potato plantlets. Cardinal variety was infected with PVX (3.21%), PVY (1.27%), PLRV (0.63%), PVS (1.99%); PVM (0.63%) and PVA (0.23%) and Desiree potato variety was infected with PVX (5.90%), PVY (1.52%), PLRV (0.38%), PVS (1.35%); PVM (0.42%) and PVA (0.08%) where as Diamant was infected with PVX (4.30%), PVY (0.80%), PLRV (0.20%), PVS (1.20%) and PVM (0.10%). No virus infection was observed in the samples of all three varieties collected from incubation room. Plantlets collected from glass house, Cardinal variety was infected with PLRV (1.25%), PVS (0.42%) and PVM (0.42%) and plantlets of Desiree infected with PVX (0.75%), PVY (0.75%), PLRV (0.93%), PVS (0.37%) and PVM (0.56%) where as plantlets of Diamant were infected with PVX (1.71%), PVY (0.86%), PLRV (1.14%), PVS (0.57%) and PVM (0.29%). The samples collected from tunnels, Cardinal plantlets were infected with PVX (10.32%), PVY (7.74%), PLRV (2.58%), PVS (12.90%) and Desiree plantlets were infected with PVX (13.92), PVY (4.40) andd PVS (5.86) and plantlets of Diamant were infected with (8.89), PVY (5.93) and PVS (8.89%). The samples collected from Murree tunnels, Cardinal was infected with PVX (2.44%), PLRV (0.28%), PVS (0.70%), PVM (0.42%) and PVA (0.14%) where as samples of Desiree and Diamant were infected with only PVX (4.51%, 3.65% respectively). The samples collected from field, Cardinal variety was infected with PVX (25.00%), PVY (20.00%), PVS (15.00%), PVM (7.50%), PVA (3.75%) and plantlets of Desiree were infected with PVX (44%), PVY (26.67%), PLRV (5.33%), PVS (18.67%), PVM (9.33), PVA (2.67%) and plantlets of Diamant were infected with PVX (34.78%), PVY (8.70%) and PVS (21.74%). These samples were collected from the suspected plantlets and ELISA test was carried out to identify the infecting virus in order to produce healthy potato plantlets for further multiplication of disease free seed potato.