The use of partially resistant cultivars should become an essential component of a sustainable management strategy of potato late blight, caused by Phytophthora infestans. It is therefore important to determine to what extent P. infestans populations can be selected for increased aggressiveness by potato cultivars with different levels of partial resistance. To this end, we sampled P. infestans populations from France and Morocco, chosen as locations where late blight occurs regularly but which differ in the distribution of potato cultivars. Cross-inoculation experiments were used to determine the aggressiveness of all populations to potato cvs. Bintje (prevalent in France but not grown in Morocco) and Désirée (popular in Morocco but cultivated to a very small extent in France). French populations were more aggressive on cv. Bintje than on cv. Désirée, irrespective of the site they were sampled from. Their aggressiveness increased between early and late samplings, suggesting that both cultivars selected for increased aggressiveness during epidemics. By contrast, Moroccan populations were more aggressive on Désirée, regarded as partially resistant in Europe, than on Bintje, highly susceptible under European conditions. These data indicate that P. infestans populations adapt to locally dominant cultivars, irrespective of their resistance levels, and can therefore overcome polygenic, partial resistance. This adaptive pattern may render partial resistance nondurable if not properly managed.

Cultivar mixtures can reduce potato late blight severity on susceptible cultivars. While alternating rows of susceptible and resistant cultivars would be more acceptable than random mixtures for commercial use, they increase the genotype unit area, which is an unfavorable factor for mixture efficiency, and have been minimally efficient when disease pressure is high. The effects of disease pressure on the performance of alternating rows of cultivars possessing various types and levels of resistance were investigated in 2000 and 2001 near Quito, Ecuador, where natural pressure of late blight is high. The experiments included the highly susceptible cvs. Cecilia in 2000 and LBr37 in 2001, as well as C114 (moderately resistant) and PAN (highly resistant), planted as pure stands and as the three possible two-way combinations. Different disease pressures were obtained with three spraying schedules of a contact fungicide: nontreated, one spray every second week, and one spray weekly. The area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) on the susceptible cultivar was 0 to 20% less in mixed than in pure plots when no fungicide was applied, 13 to 26% less with a biweekly application of fungicide, and 32 to 53% less with a weekly application. These values are comparable to those obtained in previous experiments in smaller plots with designs maximizing the distance between susceptible plants. No significant differences in mixture performance were observed according to the resistant cultivar included. Effects on yield were minimal, because of the impact of factors other than late blight. Disease pressure therefore appears as a major factor conditioning the efficiency of potato cultivar mixtures against late blight.

Coconut palms (Cocos nucifera L.) can be affected by several types of Lethal Yellowing (LY) diseases worldwide. Some of the syndromes are caused by phytoplasmas, small bacteria that are impossible to detect by light microscopy. Amplification of a given gene of the phytoplasmas by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the most convenient diagnosis method. The problem is that there are at least 28 "groups" of phytoplasmas and only one pair of primers-P1/P7-commonly used for PCR. As these primers belong to a very conserved gene, false positives are frequent. Consequently, alternative primers specific to one "strain" (or subgroup) have to be used, such as LY-F/LY-R for the Caribbean LY, Rohde primers for LD Tanzania. Such specific primers are sometimes restrictive. Indeed, there is variability within each strain and the sequence of the primers has to be adapted to that variability. There are at least five LY subgroups. The subgroups can only be identified by restriction fragment length polymorphism or sequencing. In Africa, two subgroups of LY phytoplasmas have been identified so far.

Many race-specific resistance genes to potato late blight are overcome in France, but the disease appears later on genotypes carrying the R2 gene. This study examined whether R2 could contribute to durable late-blight control in France, and analysed the conditions of its performance. Plants grown from tubers of different physiological ages showed no difference in R2 expression in field and climate-chamber experiments, demonstrating that the delay in epidemic onset provided by R2 was not the result of gene inactivation in old plants. Among isolates collected at one site, those virulent on R2 were classified into three AFLP profiles. AFLP-VII comprised exclusively isolates virulent to R2 , whereas AFLP-IV and AFLP-V included both virulent and avirulent isolates. No significant aggressiveness differences were observed between virulent and avirulent isolates from AFLP-V; however, isolates from AFLP-VII were significantly less aggressive than virulent isolates from AFLP-V. These results indicate that: (i) the delayed onset of epidemics on R2 cultivars is the result of the breakdown of R2 by virulent isolates; (ii) aggressiveness of isolates virulent to R2 depends primarily on the genetic background of the pathogen where the mutation to virulence occurs; and (iii) this mutation does not lead per se to lower pathogenic fitness. It is suggested that R2 is unlikely to make a lasting contribution to late-blight control in France, and that diversification strategies such as cultivar mixtures might not considerably increase its durability.

Surveys for the Côte d'Ivoire lethal yellowing (CILY) phytoplasma were conducted in eight severely CILY-affected villages of Grand-Lahou in 2015. Leaves, inflorescences and trunk borings were collected from coconut palms showing CILY symptoms and from symptomless trees. Total DNA was extracted from these samples and tested by nested polymerase chain reaction/RFLP and sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA, ribosomal protein (rp) and the translocation protein (secA) genes. The CILY phytoplasma was detected in 82.9% of the symptom-bearing palms collected from all the surveyed villages and from all the plant parts. Trunk borings were recommended as the most suitable plant tissue type for sampling. Results indicate that the CILY phytoplasma may have a westward spread to other coconut-growing areas of Grand-Lahou. CILY phytoplasma strains infecting coconut palms in the western region of Grand-Lahou exhibited unique single nucleotide polymorphisms on the rp sequence compared to the strains from the eastern region. Moreover, single nucleotide polymorphisms on the SecA sequence distinguished the CILY phytoplasma from the Cape St. Paul Wilt Disease phytoplasma in Ghana, and the Lethal Yellowing phytoplasma in Mozambique. (Résumé d'auteur