Occurrence of the northern root-knot nematode Meloidogyne hapla Chitwood, 1949 (Nematoda: Meloidogynidae) in seed potatoes on the territory of Poland Wystąpienie guzaka północnego Meloidogyne hapla Chitwood, 1949 (Nematoda: Meloidogynidae) w sadzeniakach na terytorium Polski

Summary During official controls of seed potatoes performed by the State Plant Health and Seed Inspection Service in 2011–2012, the presence of the northern root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne hapla Chitwood, 1949) was revealed in 21 tuber samples originating from the area of Lubelskie Voivodeship in Poland. In 2011 the level of infestation was 2.61% (11 from among 422 tested samples were infested) and in 2012 – 2.81% (the nematodes were found in 10 samples from among 356 tested). The results of the morphological and morphometric analyses of females and J2 juveniles isolated from all 21 positive samples were confirmed by results of conducted molecular tests (PCR-ITS – Polymerase Chain Reaction-Internal Transcribed Spacer, PCR-SCAR – Polymerase Chain Reaction-Sequence Characterized Amplified Regions and PCR-RFLP – Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism) which simultaneously excluded presence of quarantine root-knot nematode species Meloidogyne chitwoodi (Golden et al. 1980) and M. fallax (Karssen 1996).