Detection of Ratoon Stunting Disease in Virus-free Seedcane via Real-time Fluorescence Quantitative PCR

This study was to develop the real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR technique for detecting the ratoon stunting disease (RSD) in virus-free seedcane seedlings. Healthy tissue culture seedlings were obtained from six plants of sugarcane ROC22, which had been confirmed RSD-positive by detecting the sugarcane juice, by employing the sugarcane seedlings production protocol. Real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR was used to detect RSD pathogens in tissue culture samples. The results showed that target fragment of RSD pathogens was not found in all 10 samples in real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR, with the Ct values of 37-39. The healthy tissue culture sugarcane seedlings do not carry RSD pathogens, indicating that adopting healthy seedcane seedlings production technique could thoroughly get rid of RSD pathogens.