First report of tomato yellow leaf curl virus in tomato in south Georgia.

In October 1998, symptoms characteristic of tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) were observed on fresh market tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) in four production fields, two in Decatur County, Georgia, and two in Gadsden County, Florida. Symptoms observed were plant stunting, reduced leaf size, yellow leaf margins, and mottling. The incidence of symptomatic plants was less than 1% in all fields examined. In most cases, symptoms were observed only on the upper portion of plants, suggesting these plants had been infected by secondary spread from an unknown source. Nuclear inclusions characteristic of geminiviruses were observed by light microscopy in leaf tissue from symptomatic plants (1). To identify the geminivirus, total DNA from infected plants was extracted from six symptomatic tomato plants (two from Georgia and four from Florida) for polymerase chain reaction (PCR; J. E. Polston, personal communication). DNA was amplified with geminivirus DNA A degenerate primer set PAL1v1978 and PAR1c496 (2...