Efficacy of Plant Tissue Culture Techniques for Eliminating Black Mulberry Idaeovirus (BMIV) from Infected Black Mulberry (Morus nigra)

Obtaining virus-free plants is a crucial step in disease management that enables reliable and profitable fruit farming. The present study applied various in vitro virus elimination protocols, including apical shoot culture, chemotherapy, thermotherapy, cryotherapy, and their combination, to eliminate black mulberry Idaeovirus (BMIV) from sour black mulberry. First, a shoot tip (0.5–2 mm) culture protocol was optimized, and four ribavirin concentrations (0, 10, 20, and 30 mg/L) were investigated over five weeks as a form of chemotherapy (ch). For the first thermotherapy treatment (Ch + Th1st), chemotherapy treatment was followed by a gradual increase in the temperature (24–33 °C). In another experiment (Th2nd + Ch), in vitro shoots were incubated in the dark for two weeks at two different temperatures (35 ± 1 °C and 37 ± 1 °C, for one week each). Subsequently, the shoot tips were incubated with various ribavirin doses. Finally, cryotherapy (Cr) was used with or without immersing the shoot tips in liquid nitrogen. A two-step RT-PCR was performed to assess the presence of the virus in 7–8-week-old in vitro plants. Th2nd + Ch significantly increased the shoot tip burst and plant survival/morphogenesis compared to the other treatments. Except for the application of cryotherapy, the protocols eliminated BMIV in different proportions, and the highest virus elimination rate (50%) was obtained by applying 30 mg/L ribavirin during the Ch + Th1st treatment. These findings are essential in preventing the dissemination of the virus and enabling the safe movement of germplasm around the world.