[NYTr] Cuba Develops Strategy to Fight Destructive Citrus Virus

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN)
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Cuba Develops Strategy to Fight Destructive Citrus Virus

Havana, Nov 2 (acn) As a result of Cuban scientists' studies of the 
most destructive virus threatening citrus production, that is the 
Tristeza virus, epidemics caused by its most efficient vector have been 
prevented.

The internationally-recognized research was carried out by a 
multidisciplinary team headed by Drs.Lochy Batista Le Riverend, Ines 
Peña and Karelia Velasquez, with the Tropical Fruit Growing Research 
Institute, in collaboration with Francisco F. Laranjeira, with Brazil's 
Agricultural and Livestock Research Enterprise.

The Cuban scientists' study is the only one of its kind in the country 
and one of the first ones completed in the world, using modern 
statistical techniques and the analysis of the focal structure, which 
are methods rarely used on plants.

Dr. Lochy noted an important outcome of the research was the 
establishment of complex climatic patterns to determine what the 
influence of the weather conditions in the virus populations' behavior 
is. It also revealed the vector's variation patterns and response to 
climatic changes.

Based on the scientific results of the study, the strategies used in 
the management of citrus plantations in Cuba were modified taking into 
account among other facts, the virus reproduction rates. This has 
resulted in a positive impact in the national citrus cultivations, 
while allowing a more efficient use of resources, said Lochy.

The new management program and the improvement of the epidemiological 
control system have prevented the outbreak in Cuba of epidemics caused 
by the black citrus aphid, which is tristeza virus' most effective 
vector.

The research on the Tristeza virus has been recognized with the 
national award of the Cuban Sciences Academy in 2006 and by 
international institutions such as the University of California in the 
U.S and Brazil's Federal Rural University of Pernambuco.

Of the more than 30 virus and virus-like diseases of citrus known in 
the world, citrus tristeza virus (CTV) is the most destructive. In 
1981, the total world loss attributable to this disease was estimated 
at 50 million trees. The high degree of efficacy of the black citrus 
aphid as a CTV vector was demonstrated by the rapid spread of the 
disease in South America immediately after the introduction of the 
disease.
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