National Centre for Agrarian Sciences Investigation of Plum Pox Virus in Bulgaria

Plum Pox Virus (Sharka) disease was described in Bulgaria 70 years ago by Dr. Dimitar Atanasov. The investigations on sharka in Bulgaria were carried out in the following ways during the last 70 years: Diagnostics, identification and characterization of the pathogen; Epidemiological evaluations and economic importance of PPV and disease control. Reduction of the yield and worsened flavour and commercial qualities were found even in cultivars tolerant to sharka. The most recent investigations on PPV have been aimed at establishing the correlation between the biological, serological and molecular properties of the Bulgarian PPV isolates The results of the above mentioned items are presented in this paper. Key words: plum pox virus, diagnostic, identification, characterization, epidemiological evaluations, contro