Elimination of Grapevine fanleaf virus in Grapevine by in vivo and in vitro thermotherapy

Abstract

In this paper, results of the in vitro treatment are compared with those of in vivo therapy (i.e. treatment of plants in a peat substrate) when eliminating GFLV (Grapevine fanleaf virus) from three grapevine rootstocks. Therapy took 45 days under the temperature of 37°C in both cases. As far as the health condition of treated plants was concerned, no differences were found between the two methods. The differences were manifested in numbers of plants dying during the therapy and in the course of cultivation of apical segments treated with thermotherapy. Based on these results, it can be recommended to apply the thermotherapy in vivo, which - as compared with the in vitro method - enables us to obtain a greater number of apical segments from treated plants and to establish a smaller number of in vitro cultures in the course of the treatment. A shorter period of in vitro cultivation of plants is another advantage of this method because it helps to reduce the risk of somaclonal variability.