Identification of Begomoviruses Infecting Crops and Weeds in Belize

Plants including pepper, red kidney bean, squash, string bean and tomato, as well as weeds with viral symptoms were collected from five districts in Belize over a three year period with the aim of determining the diversity of the begomoviruses present. Sixty five percent of the samples screened via DNA hybridization produced signals indicative of begomovirus infection. Subsequent PCR amplifications and nucleotide sequence analyses revealed the presence of four begomoviruses in Belize. Pepper golden mosaic virus and Tomato mottle virus-[Flo] were found associated with tomato and sweet pepper and the former was also isolated from hot pepper. Merremia mosaic virus was found infecting hot pepper, sweet pepper and the weed species Euphorbia heterophylla. Euphorbia mosaic virus-[Yucatan Peninsula] was found in hot pepper and Euphorbia. This is the first report of the identification of begomoviruses in Belize.