Disease Note.

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Geminivirus in Jamaica. D. McGlashan, Bodies Agr. Res. Sta., Old Harbour, Jamaica W. I.,. and J. E. Polston and D. Bois, Univ. of Florida, Gulf Coast Res. and Educ. Ctr., 5007 60th St. E., Bradenton 34203. Plant Dis. 78:1219. Accepted for publication 3 October 1994. Copyright 1994 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/PD-78-1219C.

During the spring of 1993 and 1994, fields of tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) in the parishes of St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine displayed viruslike symptoms similar to those of tomato yellow leaf curl geminivirus (TYLCV). Symptoms consisted of upward curling of the leaves, severely reduced leaf size, yellowing of the leaf margins and veins, flower abscission, and stunting of plants. High whitefly (Bemisia sp.) populations were associated with symptomatic plants. Leaf samples were collected 3 May 1994 from a field of tomato (cv. Oxheart) at Bodies, St. Catherine. Nucleic acid extracts from samples of symptomatic tomato leaves were analyzed by spot hybridization using a probe of cloned TYLCV DNA (courtesy Y. Antignus). Blots were washed under high stringency conditions. Strong hybridization was observed with the TYLCV DNA. In addition, DNA extracts of samples were amplified in a thermocycler using degenerate primers specific for the A (PALlvl978 and PARlc496) and B (PBL1v2040 and PCRcl) components (I). Amplification of Jamaican samples and TYLCV isolates from Israel each yielded a ca. 1,400 bp fragment with A primers and no fragment with B primers. Restriction of the ca.1,400 bp fragment from Jamaican samples with MspI, EcoRI, SacI, Pstl, and BamHl revealed a pattern identical to that of TYLCV recently found in the Dominican Republic (2). This is the first report of TYLCV in Jamaica and the second in the Western Hemisphere (2).