Abstract

Myrtus communis L., is mainly used in the food industry for the production of both a red and a white traditional sardinian liquor. Given the important of this plant species for the regional economy, many studies have been made to strenghten our knowledge on the different cultivation techniques and on the potentiality of the different cultivars. In the first part of this work a short review of the main Myrtle diseases is presented with special enphasis nursery diseases induced by Phytophthora ssp., P. nicotinae, and P. italica, and by Cylindrocladium pauciramosum and C. scoparium, that seriously affect plant vitality . Secondly we refer on a severe series of symptoms, observed during recent experimental surveyes carried out in Northen Sardinian, and apparently related to phytoplasma infections. Here we describe our studies aimed to assess the phytoplasmas presence on the lives of symptomatic plants collected from two different fields. A series of molecular assays with PCR and nested-PCR followed by RFLP allowed to identify the presence of 16SrIII-B phytoplasma (reference strain “Peach X disease”), 16SrX-A subgroup (reference strain “Apple proliferation”) and 16SrXII-A (reference strain “Stolbur”) in the plant samples. Epidemiological role of the plant material used for myrtle propagation and of the Auchenorryncha populations present in the field, are discussed, as well as, disease control.

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