2025/01/01 by Maíra Rodrigues Duffeck, Ashleigh M. Faris, Astri Wayabande +31 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Plant Disease Management Techniques #Plant Pathogenic Bacteria Studies #Plant Virus Research Studies
paper · doi:10.1094/php-03-25-0082-sc
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Corn stunt is one of the most significant corn diseases in the Neotropics, leading to severe plant stunting and substantial yield losses. Although four pathogens have been found either singly or in combination in infected plants in the Americas, corn stunt spiroplasma ( Spiroplasma kunkelii) has been the most predominant pathogen associated with the disease in the United States, due to its widespread distribution in the Rio Grande Valley region and persistent occurrence in California and Florida. During the 2024 growing season, reports of chlorosis, leaf reddening, and stunting in corn fields in Southern, Great Plains, Central Corn Belt, and Northeastern states raised concern regarding the possibility of a more widespread distribution of corn stunt spiroplasma in the United States. Symptomatic corn leaf samples were collected in commercial and experimental field sites across the United States. Detection and identification of S. kunkelii were performed using a polymerase chain reaction assay targeting a section of the spiralin gene, followed by amplicon sequencing. This study provides the first report of the pathogen S. kunkelii associated with corn stunt symptoms distributed across 6 counties in Oklahoma, 14 counties in Kansas, 2 counties in Missouri and Arkansas, 4 counties in New York, and 1 county in each of Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Alabama. All states with submitted samples had at least one confirmed case of S. kunkelii.