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Description
Implanting a new crop in a given region needs to take care on potentially imported diseases with the plant material and controlling local known pests able to damage the new crop. This will be the case for sugarcane that was implanted in different Mediterranean region to be tested for producing rum. Sugarcane is a vegetatively propagated semi perennial crop prohibited for importation in Europe due to 11 EU quarantine pests that can be introduced with the propagated material. Best way is to use quarantining for controlling sugarcane pests. Only one accredited sugarcane quarantine is available in Europe in Montpellier France. In addition, imported sugarcane could be under pressure of sugarcane pests already present in EU as 20 of the 95 sugarcane pests listed in the EPPO database are present in the EU. Also, viruses originating from other poaceae may be transferred to sugarcane that shares viruses at the family and genus level with Mediterranean wild poaceae but today different species are involved (1). Currently, it is necessary to evaluate sugarcane adaptation to local environment including pests damages as pesticides are rarely used in sugarcane crops and disease management is mainly done by using tolerant/resistant varieties.
1. Daugrois, J. H., Filloux, D., Julian, C., Claude, L., Ferdinand, R., Fernandez, E., ... & Roumagnac, P. (2021). Comparison of the virome of quarantined sugarcane varieties and the virome of grasses growing near the quarantine station. Viruses, 13(5), 922.
