Incidence of virus infections in grapevines from Croatian collection plantations

Abstract

Evaluation of the incidence of virus infections was conducted in two grapevine collection fields. The first was the National collection of Croatian native grapevine cultivars, situated at the “Jazbina” experimentation station in eastern Zagreb, where more than 120 different autochthonous grapevine cultivars are held, collected from different Croatian vine-growing regions. The second was a regional collection located in Risika, on the island of Krk (the North Adriatic region) containing 19 native cultivars from that region. During February 2009 from both collections, 95 plants were selected and tested for presence of eight viruses by ELISA, including: Arabis mosaic virus (ArMV), Grapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV), Grapevine fleck virus (GFkV), Grapevine leafroll-associated virus 1 (GLRaV-1), Grapevine leafroll-associated virus 2 (GLRaV-2), Grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 (GLRaV-3), Grapevine virus A (GVA) and Grapevine virus B (GVB). The dominant virus in both collections was GLRaV-3, present in 75 vines (78.9%) in the National collection and in 73 vines (76.8%) in the Risika collection. The second most frequent virus in the National collection was GVA (60.0%), followed by GLRaV-1 (29.5%), GFkV (24.2%), GFLV (17.9%), ArMV (12.6%), GLRaV-2 and GVB (2.1%). In the Risika collection, GLRaV-3 was followed by GFLV (42.1%), GFkV (36.8%), GVA (32.6%), ArMV (23.2%), GLRaV-1 (11.6%), GLRaV-2 and GVB (1.1%). Mixed infections with two, three of four different viruses were also common in both collections. In the National collection the most common mixed infections were GLRaV-3 + GVA (15.8%) and GLRaV-1 + GLRaV-3 + GVA (14.7%), while in the Risika collection dominant were mixed infections with GLRaV-3 + GVA (10.5%) and GFLV + GLRaV-3 (8.4%). Free of all eight tested viruses were ten vines (10.5%) in the National collection and only seven vines (7.4%) in the Risika collection. This investigation has demonstrated that there has been deteriorated sanitary status of Croatian autochthonous cultivars, and indicates the need for the production of certified virus-free planting material.