Yellow leaf curl disease: Detection, genetic diversity and its management

Legumes are important crops, which are consumed for human and animal globally that significantly contribute to the income of the Omani farmers. Legumes have a major role in sustainable agriculture not only used as a regular vegetable diet but also as main source of many micronutrients and proteins. Legumes also have the ability to make symbiotic association with certain bacteria like Rhizobia and fix atmospheric nitrogen. This symbiotic association helps the farmers to use legumes in crop rotation to maintain the nitrogen level into the soil. Meanwhile, the contribution of legume production to the local farmers in the region is endangered by a yellow mosaic disease (YMD). Once the disease is established into one plant it transfers to the adjacent plants, neighboring fields and next farms through its vector. Several viral strains are associated to cause the YMD particularly in legumes which are further spreading to other crops due to the polyphagous nature of the insect vector (whitefly: Bemisia tabaci) responsible to spread this disease. Several factors are responsible for the occurrence, incidence and the economic losses occurred by these viruses. Many of these factors solely depend on the etiology of the viruses and their effects on legume crop production. However, due to the huge diversity among different viral strains and their insect vector an efficient and stable approach would be an important aspect to control the legume disease. In order to control the virus infection in legumes crops genetic diversity study of the YMD as well as integrated pest and disease management (IPDM) strategies need to be optimized based on the biology and ecology of the viruses. In the proposed study different plant infecting viral strains will be characterizing and assess the genetic diversity among different isolates in different geographical areas. General protective measures will be studied followed by the effectiveness of IPDM strategy. Development of an IPDM approach could help the farmers to limit the huge economic losses occur every year. The proposed project is anticipating useful information for the legumes growers to control viral disease.