First report of little cherry virus 1 in cherry, plum, almond and peach in Italy.

Little cherry disease is a widespread disorder of ornamental, sweet and sour cherries. In sensitive cultivars, it results in the production of small, pale-coloured fruits with reduced sugar content and in the premature redden- ing or bronzing of the leaves. Little cherry virus-1 and Little cherryvirus 2 both members of the family Closteroviridae, are associated with this disease, but often induce symptomless infection. Assays for both viruses were made during a survey in 2006 and 2007 of the sanitary status of fruit trees in Apulia. Samples were collected in different commercial orchards from 22 sweet cherry, 13 plum, five almond, five peach, and two apricot trees. Total nucleic acids were extracted from the leaves and used as template for Superscript III one-step RT-PCR with Taq DNA polymerase using primer sets specific for LChV-1 or LChV-2 Whereas all samples were negative for LChV-2, a 419 bp fragment corresponding to part of the 3'non-translated region of LChV-1 RNA was amplified from five cherry, four plum, one almond and one peach tree samples. These results were obtained in several independent experiments. Trees of both native and im- ported cultivars