First report of pospiviroids infecting ornamental plants in Australia: Potato spindle tuber viroid in Solanum laxum (synonym S. jasminoides) and Citrus exocortis viroid in Petunia spp.

Pospiviroids, including the quarantine regulated Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd), have recently been shown to cause symptomless infections of various ornamental plant species in Europe (Verhoeven et al., 2010, Verhoeven et al., 2012). These findings have drawn attention to the potential role of these host plants as sources of infection for commercially important crops including tomato, sweet pepper, potato and citrus. In order to investigate the viroid status of a variety of solanaceous crops, ornamental plants and weed hosts in Australia, a national survey was conducted during 2012. Here we report survey findings from the state of Queensland, where sampling was conducted between June to September 2012