Symptomatology of Citrus mosaic sadwavirus (CiMV) in Some Citrus Cultivars and Effect of CiMV Infection on Citrus Fruit Quality

Citrus mosaic sadwavirus (CiMV) is a closely related virus with the Satsuma dwarf virus (SDV) along with Navel orange infectious mottling virus (NIMV), Natsudaidai dwarf virus (NDV), and Hyugagatsu virus (HV). The present study found that the typical symptoms of CiMV-infected citrus fruits include the appearance of dark blue speckles or ringspots on fruit rinds and the browning of oil glands in the spots as rind coloring began. As rind coloring progressed, the spots gradually faded, whereas the browning of the oil glands worsened to the point that the tissues surrounding the oil glands became necrotic. In very early satsuma mandarins (Citrus unshiu ‘Miyamoto Wase’) and ‘Setoka’ cultivar (C. hybrid ‘Setoka’) of late-maturity citrus, the symptomatic fruits were eventually dropped. And in early satsuma mandarin (C. unshiu ‘Miyakawa Wase’), the peel hardness of the virus-infected fruit (1,618.3 ± 305.5, g-force) was more than twice as hard as that of the healthy fruit (636.5 ± 39.1, g-force). The ratio of flesh weight to total fruit weight was higher for the healthy fruit (77.3 ± 1.7%) than for the infected fruit (70.7 ± 0.6) and peel puffing was more severe in the infected fruit (2.9 ± 0.4 mm) than in the healthy fruit (0.9 ± 0.2 mm). The soluble solids content in infected citrus fruits was less values than the healthy fruit by 0.5–1.5 °Brix. These findings reveal that CiMV infection on citrus trees reduces the fruit quality of citrus.