Epidemiology, Pathology and Diagnostic Methods of Fruit Tree and Grapevine Viruses

Dear Colleagues,

Viruses are an important limiting factor in the production of plant-based foods and their processed products, by directly affecting crop yield and quality. Perennial hosts, such as fruit trees and grapevine, tend to accumulate multiple virus species/strains/isolates either via the propagation of infected material or through additional infections during their longer lifespans. Infection by a pathogenic virus/virus isolate manifests into a disease which, in addition to the reduction in yield and lower quality of products, can also shorten the productive life of the orchard/vineyard or kill the host, resulting in loss of capital.

Over the past couple of decades, the number of plant viruses has been growing at a fast pace, mainly due to the advent of molecular techniques and high-throughput sequencing. However, knowledge regarding the biological characteristics of these viruses has not been able to keep up, resulting in the accumulation of viral sequences in databases which lack a biological context. Moreover, the discovery of new genetic variants of already characterized viruses directly affects the robustness and specificity of the diagnostic methods in use. It is imperative that we gain insight into the pathology and epidemiology of these new isolates so they can be evaluated as a biological entity rather than a pool of sequence data. This knowledge will lead to implementing control programs according to the impact these viruses have, in contrast to considering all viral isolates/strains and species as high-concern ones.

This Special Issue aims to advance the knowledge regarding plant virus pathology and epidemiology, presenting information about the accumulation, symptoms, spread, impact, vectors, and host range of new and known viruses, as well as presenting novel or re-evaluating already established diagnostic methods for viruses infecting fruit trees and grapevine.

Dr. Antonio Olmos
Dr. Ana Belen Ruiz-Garcia
Dr. Leonidas Lotos
Guest Editors

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• diagnostic methods
• virus pathology
• virus epidemiology
• HTS
• Fruit Tree Viruses
• Grapevine Viruses