Annual CTV testing of all trees at the Lindcove Research and Extension Center was completed in April.  Four hard-working field staff sampled 11,000 trees by blotting the cut ends of four stems per tree onto nitrocellulose membranes.  Membranes were bulk processed with DAS-ELISA in the Lindcove Plant Pathology Lab.  Samples found to contain the virus were further tested for strain type using RT-qPCR.  Trees that were found to be positive will be removed to protect the research program and foundation trees at Lindcove.  

Therese Kapaun, LREC Staff Research Associate, used TaqMan probes to determine that samples were infected with the T30 strain, which is the common asymptomatic strain in the Central Valley.  Further, she tested all positive samples for presence of MCA13 reactivity, as trees can be co-infected with multiple strains.  Fortunately all trees were negative for this epitope, as this is the strain that reveals potentially virulent isolates, which are found in low incidence in this area.