Begomovirus Diseases of Ornamental and Fruit Plants: Discoveries and Management Approaches

Begomoviruses (family Geminiviridae) consist of single-stranded (ss) and circular genome particles which are transmitted by a complex of whitefly (Bemisia tabaci—Gennadius) biotype vectors and are also infecting fruits and ornamental plants all over the world. There have been few reports about the association of DNA satellite (alphasatellite and betasatellite) molecules with begomoviruses infecting fruits and ornamental plants. The introduction of different whitefly biotypes into diverse geographical areas and polyphagous nature of insect vector is responsible for transmitting the begomoviral diseases to different fruits and ornamental plants. Advancement in virus detection technology as high-throughput sequencing also helps in the identification of different begomoviruses from fruit and ornamental plants. The begomovirus diseases in fruits and ornamental plants mainly focussed on the molecular characterization and phylogenetic and recombination analysis followed by different management approaches using CRISPER/Cas technologies. This book chapter highlights the begomovirus diseases of fruits and ornamental plants, their discoveries using different virus detection technologies including high-throughput DNA sequencing and application of their management approaches.