Evaluation of the efficiency of various treatments used for sugarcane white leaf phytoplasma control

The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the efficiency of various treatments used for sugarcane white leaf phytoplasma control and quantify the amount of phytoplasma after using different treatments. Different treatments were used with cane stalks to attempt to reduce the phytoplasma concentration as follows; control (no treatment), dual hot water treatment, hot water followed by cold water, and hot water followed by tetracycline HCl 500 ppm. The results showed that the control had the highest percentage of sugarcane white leaf phytoplasma at 100%, followed by the use of hot water, followed by cold water at 95.24%, dual hot water at 90.48% and hot water+tetracycline HCl 500 ppm at 71.43%. Moreover, the control had the highest quantification of the amount of SCWL phytoplasma at 158.71 copies/sample, followed by the use of hot water+cold water, dual hot water and hot water+tetracycline HCl with the amount of phytoplasma at 31.50, 10.99 and 3.72·10 ^-2 copies/sample, respectively. The control without any treatment had the highest cane germination at 77.5%, followed by the use of hot water followed by cold water, hot water followed by tetracycline HCl, and dual hot water with germination rates at 42.5%, 5% and 2.5% respectively. In conclusion, soaking cane stalks in hot water, followed by tetracycline HCl can reduce the percentage of SCWL phytoplasma more than other treatments whereas the cane germination rate is comparatively low.