Disease Note.

First Report of Grapevine Bois Noir Phytoplasrna in Spain. A. Lavifia and A. Batlle, Departament de Patologia Vegetal, IRTA, 08348 Cabrils (Barcelona), Spain; and J. Lame, X. Daire, D. Clair, and E. Boudon-Padieu, Station de Recherches sur les Mycoplasmes des Plantes, INRA, BV 1540-21034 Dijon Cedex, France. Plant Dis. 79:1075, 1995; published on-line as D-1995-0823-OlN, 1995. Accepted for publication 10 August 1995.

During the last 5 years, a grapevine yellows disease has been observed on Vitis vinifera cv. Chardonnay in several viticultural areas of Catalonia (northeastern Spain). The symptoms observed include leaf roll, vein chlorosis and necrosis, withering of flowers, and absence of lignification in autumn. Flavescence dorce (FD), a phytoplasma disease, was suspected because of the presence of the leafhopper Scaphoideus titanus Ball, the vector of FD, in affected vineyards. In late summer and autumn 1994, when typical yellows symptoms appeared in Catalonia, leaves from symptomatic plants were collected. The DNA was extracted from phytoplasma-enriched fractions from main leaf veins (2). The primers used were designed for specific amplification of a part of the 16s rRNA gene from all known phytoplasmas (1). AluI restriction profiles of the ampli- fied fragments showed that the grapevine phytoplasma belonged to the aster yellows (AY) phytoplasma group and was present in all sympto- matic plants tested. Further analysis with specific primers (X. Daire, unpublished) indicated that the phytoplasma was most closely related to the stolbur phytoplasma, a subgroup of the AY phytoplasma group, and therefore similar to the phytoplasma associated with bois noir (BN) disease in France (2). Although the BN and FD phytoplasmas cause similar symptoms, the vector of FD, S. titanus, cannot transmit the BN phytoplasma. This is the first report of grapevine BN phytoplasma in Spain.