Occurrence of Cherry Virus A (CVA) infecting stone fruits in Kashmir province of Northwestern Himalayan Region of India

Stone fruits such as apricot, cherry, peach, plum and nectarine are cultivated commercially worldwide as well as in India, in temperate to subtropical regions including Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab. A survey on cherry virus A (CVA) was carried out in Kashmir valley during 2020–2022, in various stone fruit growing areas. Leaf samples of these stone fruits (apricot, cherry, peach, plum and nectarine) with symptoms as well as without symptoms suspected to be infected with CVA were collected for confirmation of the virus using serological (DAS-ELISA) and molecular (RT-PCR) methods. The incidence of CVA infecting stone fruits in Kashmir based on DAS-ELISA was recorded to be 20.0% on cherry. The CVA infection on other stone fruits such as peach, plum, apricot and nectarine was not detected using DAS-ELISA. The presence of this virus was re-confirmed by RT-PCR based CP gene specific marker of CVA and amplified 1089 bp amplicon from cherry and plum samples collected from Srinagar and Budgam districts of Kashmir with an incidence of 13.07% and 9.18% on cherry and plum, respectively using RT-PCR. The sequencing of CP gene showed 80–99% sequence similarity of our isolates with other isolates from different countries and re-confirmed CVA identity. The sequences of CVA were submitted to GenBank, NCBI and accession numbers obtained (OR148941- OR148948). This study will help to characterize the whole genome of CVA from different stones and development of point-of-care diagnostics.