A mosaic disease infecting yam bean; molecular detection and transmission

Abstract

Yam bean (Pachyrhizus erosus (L.)) Urban is one of the horticulture crop in several areas in Indonesia. The role of yam bean in Indonesia such as a source of essential nutrients, pickles, utilized in comestic industrial, its seed and leaves utilized as botanical pesticide. Due to its ability as symbion with nitrogen fixation bacteria, yam bean could act as a good nitrogen supplier in soil [7]. In several yam bean fields in Bogor area, West Java and green vein-banding Prembun Central Java, we found yam bean with severe mosaic with leaf malformed, and green vein-banding symptoms. The mosaic symptom also present in infected beans. In Bogor area, the incidence up to 100%. Based on the phenotype symptoms, the casual of mosaic disease is a Poty-like virus. As one of beneficial legume, the presence of uncharacterized disease might become a serious problem not only for yam bean, also for other related legumes in the field and also in determining the management strategies. Here, we report the transmission modes and its partial molecular characters of the virus as a basic information of the disease.