Little Leaf and Yellowing Symptoms on Castanea crenata are Associated with Phytoplasma in Korea

For unknown reasons, a few trees in a private chestnut orchard in Icheon si, Gyunggi-do suffered leaf chlorosis and growth decline. Based on symptoms, phytoplasma was a probable cause. Leaf samples were collected from two symptomatic and non-symptomatic trees in the orchard for phytoplasma detection. An amplicon of about 1.2 bp size was obtained from both symptomatic trees by PCR with the universal 16S rDNA primers. Sequences of these amplicons were found to have 99% nucleotide sequence identity to the corresponding genomic region of 16SrIII (X-disease group). More than 100 phytoplasma isolates, such as Candidatus phytoplasma pruni, Milkweed yellows phytoplasma, Goldenrod yellows phytoplasma, Tsuwabuki witches'-broom phytoplasma, Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii, etc. were involved in the list. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the sequence obtained in this study closely clustered with Candidatus phytoplasma groups. While one of the amplicons shared 91% identity with the Candidatus phytoplasma castaneae, the other shared only 47%. It needs further analysis and investigation to determine the exact taxonomy. Meanwhile, based on the analysis of the sequences, chlorosis, and small leaves were associated with phytoplasma.