An isolate of Olive latent virus 2 infecting castor bean in Greece

During 2001, in the Aegean Greek islands of Rodi and Kastellorizo, wild castor bean plants (Ricinus communis L.), showing yellowish vein netting and mottling of the leaves were observed. A virus was isolated by mechanical inoculation from such plants to herbaceous hosts, which based on biological, serological and molecular assays was identified as an isolate of Olive latent virus 2 (OLV-2/CB), virtually indistinguishable from the type strain, The field syndrome was experimentally reproduced in artificially inoculated castor bean seedlings and the virus reisolated, thus fulfilling Koch's postulates. This is the first report of OLV-2 outside Italy in a natural host other than olive.