Occurrence of Meloidogyne spp. and races on the island of Cyprus

Abstract

Root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.) are widespread and destructive pests of crop plants in Cyprus. Georghiou (1957) reported Meloidogyne javanica, M. arenaria and an unidentified species while Philis and Siddiqi (1976) added M. incognita to the list. Netscher (1978) reported that in subtropical countries the length of juveniles and the configuration of the perineal pattern do not adequately serve in identifying Meloidogyne while the position of the excretory pore of the adult female seemed to be useful for distinguishing between M. javanica and M. incognita. Taylor and Sasser (1978) used several kinds of plants for separating species and races of Meloidogyne by host response while Eisenback et al. (1981) established several morphological features for distinguishing the most common species of root-knot nematodes. The object of the present study was to use the response of Sasser's differential hosts for local Meloidogyne populations and to determine morphological features that might contribute to their identification. The work is part of the International Meloidogyne Project (IMP).