Grapevine (Vitis vinifera) is one of the most widely produced fruit crop in many countries around the world. Many of the grapevine pathogens cause significant losses in both yield and quality of the crop.Thus detection and identification of bacteria, phytoplasmas, fungi and viruses is very important task for the grape producers to meet the requirements of viticulture plant health control programs as well as to prevent enormous losses in the grape production.

Cultural methods are long and laborious, and not always produce consistent results especially for phytoplasmas and viruses. ELISA method has relatively low sensitivity for bacteria and phytoplasmas making it useful only for the confirmation of grapevine diseases after visual symptoms appear but not for early detection before disease symptoms occur. Real-time PCR and reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) have an advantage of direct and specific identification of microorganisms. A microchip real-time PCR analyzer AriaDNA®and microchips allow simplifying diagnostics of grapevine diseases, to reduce analysis time and the number of manual operations. Microchips can be transported and stored at ambient temperature up to 12 months.

Lumex Instruments has tested microchip real-time PCR analyzer AriaDNA® with microchips using commercial PCR reagents for identification of several grapevine pathogens: Flavescence dorée, Bois noir, Grapevine fleck virus, Grapevine fanleaf virus, Grapevine leaf-roll associated virus-1, Grapevine leaf-roll associated virus-3, Grapevine virus A, Grapevine virus B.