A new interspecific pear cultivar Yutaka: highly resistant to the two major diseases scab and black spot on Asian pears

Phytoplasma suspected symptoms of little leaf, flat stem, witches’ broom and leaf yellowing were recorded on the four legume species, cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.), pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.), lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus) and mung bean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) in the states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Kerala from 2014 to 2016. DNA specific fragments of approximately 1.3 kb were amplified from symptomatic samples of cowpea, pigeon pea, lentil and mung bean in nested PCR assays by using two sets of universal phytoplasma nested specific primers P1/P7 followed by 3Far/3Rev. No DNA amplifications were observed in any of the non-symptomatic legume samples with same primer pairs. Pair wise sequence comparison, phylogeny and virtual RFLP analysis of 16S rDNA sequences of the four legume species confirmed the association of four different groups and subgroups of phytoplasmas in the present study. The mung bean witches’ broom at Delhi was identified to be associated with strain related to ‘Ca. P. aurantifolia’ (16SrII-D), pigeon pea little leaf at Faizabad, UP with strain related to ‘Ca. P. phoenicium’ (16SrIX-C), lentil witches’ broom at Faizabad, UP with ‘Ca. P. trifolii’ (16SrVI-D) and cow pea flat stem disease at Kerala with ‘Ca. P. cynodontis’ (16SrXIV-A). Association of ‘Ca. P. cynodontis' (16SrXIV-A) infecting cowpea, ‘Ca. P. trifolii’ (16SrVI-D) in lentil and phytoplasmas strain related to ‘Ca. P. phoenicium’ (16SrIX-C) infecting pigeon pea are the new reports to the world.