Abstract

Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) is an important pathogen in agricultural crops which is spread throughout the world with a wide host range. In Indonesia, CMV is also an important pathogen that infect various high economic value crops. Karanganyar regency is a horticultural production centers in Central Java. Its foremost products are cucurbits incuding cucumber (Cucumis sativus), melon (Cucumis melo), watermelon (Citrullus lanatus), pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata), chayote (Sechium edule), angled luffa (Luffa acutangula) and bitter melon (Momordica charantia). Recently, cucurbits crops in the area suffered from disease with symptoms of virus infection, especially CMV, that is, mosaic, vein clearing, vein banding, malformation, etc. The disease is detrimental to farmers. This research aimed to determine whether the causal agent of disease in the crops is CMV. For that, the authors conducted a survey in the field, picked up sample crops showing symptoms, brought the sample crops to the laboratory, and checked for the presence of CMV by triple antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (TAS-ELISA). The results showed that of the 50 sample crops including 7 species of cucurbits showing symptoms of virus infection, 12 were detected to be infected by CMV. CMV was distributed evenly in cucurbits in Karanganyar regency.

Key words: Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), cucurbits, triple antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (TAS ELISA), Karanganyar, Indonesia.