Items filtered by date: March 2021

Grapevine virus H (GVH) is a member of the genus Vitivirus in the family Betaflexiviridae (subfamily Trivirinae, order Tymovirales) that infects grapevine (Candresse et al., 2018). GVH was first identified in a symptomless grapevine of an unknown cultivar from Portugal in 2018 (Candresse et al. 2018), and since then the virus has been reported only from California (Diaz‑Lara et al. 2019).

Several vitiviruses have been detected in Greek vineyards (Avgelis and Roubos 2000; Dovas and Katis 2003a; 2003b; Panailidou et al. 2019; Lotos et al. 2020), but no information was available on the presence of GVH.

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera) is one of the most ancient crops cultivated worldwide for the production of both fresh grapes and wine, which represents an important source of income for many countries. Europe is the leading global wine producer, with about 50% of the world’s vine-growing area, with 3.3 million ha (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Statistics Division, FAOSTAT, 2018). Grapevine can be affected by virus and virus-like diseases that may significantly reduce the productive life of the plants as well as the grape production in terms of the quantity and quality of the berries [1]. In fact, the grapevine has been described as the crop that hosts the largest number of plant viruses, with more than 85 viral species known to infect this important crop to date [2,3].