Survey Detection and Identification of Viral Diseases of Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum L.) of Meerut District

Abstract

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicon L.) belong to genus Lycopersicon under family Solanaceae. Tomato is an important and most widely grown vegetable crop in both tropics and sub tropics of the world. It ranks second in the importance among vegetables. India is a second largest tomato producing country. In India, the estimated area and production of tomato were 0.84 million hectares with a total production of 21.18 million tones (Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, 2021-22). Among all the diseases of tomato, the tomato mosaic virus and tomato leaf curl virus (ToLCV) disease is cited to be the most devastating both in terms of quantitative and qualitative yield losses. Often, the loss reaches to the extent of 100% during summer throughout India. A study was conducted on tomato field in six blocks of Meerut District in Rabi season 2023- 24. In this study two viral diseases were observed in the surveyed area that are, tomato mosaic virus and tomato leaf curl virus. The incidence of tomato mosaic virus was recorded maximum in Daurala (9.50%) followed by Sardhana (8.97%), Kharkhauda (7.86 %), Jani khurd (7.69 %) whereas, the minimum incidence of 7.27% was recorded in Mawana and Incidence of tomato leaf curl virus was recorded maximum in Daurala (19.00%) followed by Kharkhauda (18.57%), Mawana (15.76%), Jani Khurd (17.69 %), Meerut Sadar (15.45 %) whereas, least incidence of 15.17% was recorded in Sardhana. Identified the tomato mosaic virus on the basis of symptomatology and molecular detection of tomato leaf curl virus was by PCR using coat protein specific primers. PCR products of size 530 bp were obtained, sequenced and assembled. Three applications of treatments were applied to tomato plants to manage the ToLCV vector whitefly (Bemisia tabaci): Neem oil @ 2%, Bougainvillea leaf extract @ 10%, bioagents (Beauveria bassiana & Lecanicillium lecanii), acetamiprid 20% SP @ 0.02%, diafenthiuron 50% WP @ 0.12%.