Abstract
Tomato is a very important crop in Saudi Arabia grown in both open fields and in greenhouses. Leaf samples of tomato plants showing witches' broom symptoms were tested by nested PCR assays followed by sequencing. A DNA fragment of the expected size was amplified from symptomatic and not from symptomless plants. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rDNA sequence clustered the tomato witches' broom phytoplasma detected in Saudi Arabia within the peanut witches' broom (16SrII) group ('Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia'). To our knowledge, this is first detection of a witches' broom phytoplasma associated with tomato in Saudi Arabia.