Prevalence and Incidence of Garlic (Allium sativum L.) Infecting Viruses in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, virus infection is among the most important cause for yield and quality loss in garlic production like other countries. Detection and identification of garlic viruses on fifty two samples which includes three improved varieties (Bishoftu nech, Tseday and Kuriftu) collected from different parts of Ethiopia was carried out in 2014 at BecA-ILRI hub, Nairobi, Kenya. The detection was carried out based on RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription polymerase chain reaction) using general potyvirus detection primers viz. CP, Nib and specific primers for allexiviruses those had been designed from genome sequencing of Ethiopian infected garlic samples. The RT-PCR result showed that 85% and 80% of the samples were infected by potyviruses which are the most prevalent and commonly detected across the country. Moreover, three viruses from allexiviruses namely Garlic virus-b (56%), Garlic virus-c (31%) and Garlic virus-d (31%) were identified with their level of incidences. Co-infection of potyvirus and allexiviruses were observed in all tested samples. This phenomenon has been reported by other researchers as well. The result depicted that the three improved varieties were completely infected by the viruses across all areas.