First Report of Banana bract mosaic virus in Flowering Ginger in Hawaii

Flowering ginger, Alpinia purpurata (Vieill.) K. Schum., is a popular cut flower and tropical landscape plant in Hawaii. In Hawaii, ginger flowers, including red and pink cultivars, are grown as field crops with an estimated annual sales of more than $1.6 million (USD) in 2006 (2). In June 2009, a commercial ginger flower grower from Waimanalo, Oahu, Hawaii reported plants with symptoms that included severe mosaic and stripes on the leaves. Flowers showed significant cupping and browning and growers report a reduction in size and shelf life. Symptomatic ginger was also identified at the Lyon Arboretum in Honolulu. Double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) were isolated from pooled leaf samples collected from 42 symptomatic plants at two locations on the island of Oahu to further characterize the pathogen associated with the symptomatic ginger. dsRNAs of approximately 0.7, 1.1, 1.8, 2.2, and 12 kb were present in the extractions from symptomatic plants but not in extractions from asymptomatic plants. Partial cloning a...