Molecular diagnosis of viruses infecting Amorphophallus paeoniifolius

Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (Elephant foot yam)belonging to the family of Araceae is a tropical tuber crop of widespread importance due to its production potential and popularity as a vegetable in various delicious cuisines and medicinal applications. Among the diseases, the viral disease caused by the Dasheen mosaic virus seems to be the most destructive resulting in reduced tuber yield. However there hasn t been any study on the detection and characterization of the virus infecting the plant. In view of that we have used both molecular and serological tools to detect, identify and characterize the virus infecting the elephant foot yam plants. The stratagies for controlling the viral disease is through the use of healthy planting materials and meristem culture technologies, which requires large scale diagnostic tools. As a result we have developed rapid, highly specific and sensitive diagnostic tools (molecular and serological) for the efficient and large scale indexing of the virus, which could in turn facilitate the development of viral resisitant varieties.