Outbreak and eradication of plum pox potyvirus in the Netherlands

Plum pox potyvirus (PPV) is considered a quarantine pathogen in many countries, as it causes serious problems in several Prunus species, such as apricots, peaches and plume. In the Netherlands the virus has not been established. However, in the summer of 1996 PPV was detected in trees of the plum variety 'Jubileum'. All infected trees were purchased from one foreign distributor in the European Union since 1994. In order to eradicate the virus, a survey was carried out in all orchards of growers that had planted 'Jubileum' trees of this origin. Twenty-nine out of 43 orchards and 379 out of 2676 'Jubileum' trees (=14%) were found infected. Inspection of the 12,500 remaining plum trees in these orchards revealed 13 infected trees in 5 other varieties. This demonstrates that natural spread of the virus from infected 'Jubileum' trees to other varieties occurred only occasionally. Moreover, these observations confirm the initial assumption that the virus was introduced into the Netherlands via infected 'Jubileum' trees. All infected trees were destroyed during the autumn and winter of 1996/1997. As a followup, the particular orchards will be re-inspected twice in 1997. In addition, all other plum orchards will be inspected as well. It is expected that in this way PPV will be eradicated in the Netherlands.