Description of Leafhopper, Hebata (Alboneurasca) decipiens (Paoli, 1930) and Its Transmitting Phytoplasma Infesting Sugar Beet Plants

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Piercing-Sucking Insects Dept, Plant Protection Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, P.O. Box 12618, Giza, Egypt

2 Plant Protection Dept, Fac of Agric, Ain Shams Univ, P.O. Box 68, Hadayek Shoubra 11241, Cairo, Egypt

3 Plant Pathology Dept, Fac of Agric, Ain Shams Univ, P.O. Box 68, Hadayek Shoubra 11241, Cairo, Egypt

4 Virus and Phytoplasma Dept, Plant Pathology Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, 12211, Giza, Egypt.

Abstract

Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) is the second sugar crop for sugar production after sugar cane worldwide. This plant is subjected to the infestation of several insect pests that cause considerable damage, especially leafhoppers, that can transmit phytopathogens (e.g., phytoplasma). In this work, we identified and described the leafhopper, Hebata (Alboneurasca) decipiens, in addition to the detection and molecular identification of Candidatus Phytoplasma that was transmitted by this leafhopper on sugar beet plants from naturally infected sugar beet plants to an uninfected one. The 16S rDNA gene from phytoplasma was amplified by a nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay and directly sequenced using specific primer pairs DNA fragments. The resulting sequences were analyzed and compared with another phytoplasma sequence available at GenBank sequences performing BLAST using DNAMAN.

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