Specialists of the Pyatigorsk branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution VNIIKR (All-Russian Center for Plant Quarantine) during laboratory research found in samples (samples) of regulated products (seed potatoes) a dangerous quarantine disease - potato spindle tuber viroid.
Information on the identification of quarantine objects was transferred to the Territorial Administration of the Rosselkhoznadzor for the Stavropol Territory and the Karachay-Cherkess Republic for taking legal response measures.
Viroids do not form independent particles. It's just a 359 nucleotide chunk of RNA. It is present in the affected plant and replicates through the biosynthetic mechanisms of the host plant. The yield of tubers, depending on the pathogen strain and potato variety, is reduced by 30-90%.
The disease is manifested by a general suppression of plant growth and development, crushing of leaves, curvature of their lobes and rods, folding of lobes along the midrib, waviness of their edges, color change (grayish-green or yellowish tint, sometimes anthocyanin coloration of the back side, edges and tips).
Tubers are elongated, pear-shaped or dumbbell-shaped, with an increased number of eyes, sometimes abnormally colored, with brownish spots at the eyes. The shoots are weak, often, instead of normal shoots, they form young nodules.
The infection persists in diseased tubers and seeds, is transmitted by contact during cutting and planting of tubers, during mechanized treatments, and several species of insects, especially bedbugs and aphids.