Cacopsylla costalis (Flor 1861), as a Vector of Apple Proliferation in Trentino

Recently, a epidemic of apple proliferation (AP) in an orchard area of Trentino (North Italy) occurred. The most affected cultivars were Golden Delicious, Florina and Renetta Canada grafted on different rootstocks. In this area the known or supposed vectors of the disease were not present. At the same time as the AP symptoms appeared, a notable increase of the presence of psyllids was observed on apple trees so a correlation between these insects and the AP was hypothesized. Four different psyllid species were found in the orchard: Cacopsylla melanoneura (Förster 1848), Cacopsylla costalis (Flor 1861), Cacopsylla mali (Schmidberber 1836) and Trioza urticae (Linnaeus 1758). The first two were more frequent in spring at the adult stage. In 1997 C. costalis was particularly numerous and was used to plan AP transmission trials. The transmission from infected AP apple trees to the insect in field and from the psyllids to non-infected Golden Delicious and Florina plants in the greenhouse were conducted. For the control of phytoplasma presence in the psyllids and in the apple plants polymerase chain reaction (PCR), nested PCR and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis were used. In autumn 1997, some inoculated plants showed symptoms of AP. Molecular results were consistent with the presence of phytoplasma in C. costalis and in inoculated apple cultivars.