1 Occurence of Vaccinium viruses in Blacksea region of TurkeyXI INTERNATIOANL VACCINIUM SYMPOSIUM Occurence of Vaccinium viruses in Blacksea region of Turkey Kadriye ÇAĞLAYAN 1, Hüseyin ÇELİK 2 Mona GAZEL1, Eminur ELÇİ 3, Barbara Grubar 5, Kazım GÜNDÜZ4, Irena Mavrič Pleško5, Mojca Viršček Marn5, 1 Mustafa Kemal University, Plant Protection Department, Hatay Turkey 2 Ondokuz Mayıs University, Horticulture Department, Kurupelit, Samsun Turkey 3 Niğde University, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technologies, Niğde, Turkey 4 Mustafa Kemal University, Horticulture Department, Hatay Turkey 5 Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, Hacquetova ulica 17, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia The Black Sea Region of Turkey, northeastern part of Anatolia, is one of the main germplasm centers of several Vaccinium and Ericaceous plant species. Caucasian whortleberry (Vaccinium arctostaphylos), bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) and lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idea) have been naturally grown in the forests and plateaus over the centuries. However commercial blueberry production by using northern high bush blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum) started in the 2000s. The presence of blueberry viruses in Turkey has recently been studied by our working group. The aim of this study is to detect and characterise some important viruses in Vaccinium species such as Blueberry mosaic associated virus (BlMaV), Blueberry leaf mottle virus (BLMoV), Blueberry scorch virus (BlScV), Blueberry shock virus (BlShV) and Blueberry shoestring virus (BSSV) by ELISA and/or RT-PCR analysis. Blueberry samples were collected from Samsun, Giresun, Rize, Trabzon and Artvin provinces located in the Black Sea Region in 2014 and The most common symptoms were observed as leaf crinkling, reddening, ringspots and mosaics on the leaves. The infection rates for BlScV and BlShV in tested samples were found as 2.0% and 3.0% by ELISA, respectively but not confirmed by RT-PCR. Three samples out of ten collected from Rize province were found positive for BlMaV by RT-PCR and part of the movement protein gene was succesfully amplified. Amplificiation products of three samples were directly sequenced. The sequences of Turkish isolates were identical to each other and showed 96% similarity with the isolate deposited in NCBI GenBank (Acc. No KJ704367) . BLMoV and BSSV were never found in all tested samples. Our results confirm the presence of BlMaV in Turkey but further molecular characterisation studies are still under investigation. RT-PCR result of Blueberry mosaic associated virus testing This study was supported by Turkish Scientific Council (TUBITAK-213O042) and Slovenian Research Agency (P4-0072) in frame of bilateral project between Turkey and Slovenia.