Investigation of Citrus cachexia viroid (CCaVD) in ornamental citrus plants

In this study, the presence of Citrus cachexia viroid (CCaVd), which is the causal agent of Citrus cachexia disease, was investigated in citrus varieties grown as ornamental plants in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. In this context, samples were collected from kumquat, lime, mandarinkuat, kalomandin and lemon species and varieties grown as citrus ornamental plants. The main symptoms observed in the nurseries were drying up to the graft junction point, a general stunting, shrinkage of the leaves, shortening of the internodes and general yellow coloration are symptoms. CCaVd agent was screened by RT-PCR method and it was determined on agar gel that the agent formed a 300 bp band in 35 samples. In the biological indexing study, necrosis was observed at the tips of the etrog citron leaves. Blast analysis of the agent and the reference genomes of CCaVd in the NCBI gene bank were found to have 96-99% similarity in nucleotide sequences.