Miscanthus x giganteus, energycane, and Panicum virgatum (switchgrass) are three potential biomass crops being evaluated for commercial cellulosic ethanol production. Viral diseases are potentially significant threats to these crops. Therefore, identification of viruses infecting these bioenergy crops is important for quarantine purposes, virus resistance breeding, and production of virus-free ...

The use of genetic markers that are linked to specific traits in sugarcane has the potential to increase the efficiency of the selection of improved varieties. Conventionally, markers are identified by analysing the segregation of potential markers and traits in the progeny of single crosses. However, this approach is not practical for sugarcane breeding programmes where replicated, well charac...

A new, rapid and sensitive protocol is reported for diagnosis of sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) using small (2 cm/) samples of leaf tissue as starting material. The procedure involves total RNA isolation followed by reverse transcription and amplification by the polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of a substantial portion (884bp) of the coat protein gene of SCMV. This can be followed by corrobora...

Sugarcane cultivation is hindered by several biotic constraints of which viral disease plays a major disaster. This study was carried out to evaluate the virus situation sugarcane germplasm in western Cameroon, consisting three regions (Southwest, Northwest and West region). A survey 66 villages these regions. Landraces identified included SMU58, SBK36, SNC16, NBfPc48 NBfAg53. Representative sa...

The nucleic acid of a serologically distinct potyvirus, originally isolated out of sugar cane from Pakistan, was reverse transcribed and the 3' terminal 2000 bp was PCR amplified, cloned, and sequenced. Phylogenetic comparisons of viruses representing each genus of the Potyviridae show that the Pakistani isolate is most closely related to the rymoviruses wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) and bro...

In a previous study, two chromosome regions (Scmv1 and Scmv2), conferring sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) resistance in maize, were enriched with EcoRI/MseI AFLP (Eco-AFLP) markers (methylation insensitive) by targeted bulked segregant analysis (tBSA). The objective of the present study was to further saturate these two regions with PstI/MseI AFLP (Pst-AFLP) markers (methylation sensitive) using ...