Identification of Sudden Death Diseases on Sweet and Sour Cherry Orchards in Tokat Province

Turkey is in the top of among the most world's sweet and sour cherry producer countries. however, the stone seed fruit trees experience serious disease problems in recent years. especially, sweet and sour cherry trees are heavily affected with dieback and sudden deaths occurred in short time. this study aims to investigate disease agents on the sweet and sour cherries with applying classical and molecular identification techniques and also to establish a basis for future studies. tokat's cherry production areas have been searched to determine present infection statu. hence, surveys were carried out on cherry orchards at tokat central, pazar, niksar erbaa provinces. collected plant samples from the surveys brought to our laboratory; fungi and bacteria were isolated on specific mediums and viruses and phytoplasmas were analysed using total genomic dnas respectively. the fungal and bacterial pathogens were purified from the culture and they were used in pathogenicity tests. leucostoma spp.and alternaria spp. were identified in conventional diagnostic and pathogenicity tests. molecular analyses within total genomic dnas revealed that neither phytoplamas nor viruses are present our samples. investigation of the disease agents will let to control the important disease and establish a main step for future studies.