Variability of phytoplasma associated with weeds grown in and around sugarcane crop in Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

During survey from 2013 to 2018, Cynodon dactylon at Shahjahnapur, Azamagarh, Oplismenus burmannii at Shahjahnapur, Arundo donax at Deoria and Ocimum cannum at Gorakhpur were observed with phytoplasma suspected symptoms. The maximum disease incidence (34%) was recorded at Deoria District in case of A. donax plant with witches' broom symptom. The nested PCR using universal primer pairs (R16F2n/R16R2) confirmed the phytoplasma association with all the suspected samples. Further BLASTn and phylogenetic analysis of the sequences revealed the association of 16SrXIV-A subgroups phytoplasma with C. dactylon, O. burmannii and phytoplasma belonging to 16SrI-B subgroups with A. donax and O. cannum plants in the present study.