Europe tightens controls to intercept the tomato rugose virus

The worldwide expansion of the tomato rugose virus (ToBRFV) has led the European authorities to update the regulation, which includes measures to prevent its introduction through the import of pepper and tomato seeds and modifies the frequency of official controls.

Symptoms caused by ToBRFV in tomatoes (Plant Health Service, Region of Murcia).

The European Commission revised the regulations in May 2023 to try to stop the entry of this pathogen, with much stricter controls on tomato and pepper imports from certain countries. However, since then, it has been identified for the first time in Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, and Croatia. Outside the EU, in the last two years, it has been detected in Australia, India, Morocco, and Argentina. 

Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2970 recognizes that since the adoption of the previous regulation, the virus has continued to spread widely in the territory of the Union despite the measures taken. In addition, the updated pest risk analysis carried out by the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organisation (EPPO) in June 2024 already noted that the ToBRFV situation ″has been evolving to the point that there has been an increase in its area of distribution throughout the world.″

The new legislation no longer considers rugose a quarantine pest and lists it as a ″regulated non-quarantine pest.″ To ensure that tomato and pepper seeds and plants for planting are free of the virus, the EU requires that they come from ″a country declared free of the specified pest by the national phytosanitary service in accordance with international standards for phytosanitary measures″ or be subject to ″official analyses or carried out by professional operators under official supervision.″ 

In order to avoid excessive seed destruction in the case of small batches originating from a quantity equal to or less than thirty mother plants, it is necessary to subject only the mother plants to analysis and not their seeds.

The exception is for plants for planting belonging to varieties of pepper that have been shown to be resistant to the virus, which should not be subject to the requirements of the regulation or to the corresponding frequency rates of controls since the phytosanitary risk ″is acceptable and the resistance is sufficiently documented and controlled by the competent authorities.″

The sampling and analysis percentages have been increased as the pathogen has been dispersed. Thus, the new regulation indicates that ″identity and physical controls of consignments of plants for planting that are introduced into the Union must be carried out with a frequency rate of 100%″ and maintain the highest frequency rates for Israel and China, countries in which consignments have occurred more interceptions. Specifically, a study by the Mediterranean Agroforestry Institute (IAM) and the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (IBMCP), both at the Universitat Politècnica de València, revealed that 34.4% of commercial pepper seed imports from China between 2019 and 2023 were carriers of tobamovirus; in addition to ToBRFV, the tomato mottle mosaic virus (ToMMV) also belongs to this genus, among other pathogens.

In Spain, the rugose was identified for the first time in the province of Almería, in 2019, and numerous positives have subsequently appeared in tomato and pepper greenhouses and plant breeding research centers. It currently affects 850 hectares of the Murcian town of Mazarrón, where it appeared in 2021. It has also been detected in greenhouses in Andalusia, the Valencian Community, Catalonia, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands, and the Balearic Islands.

An article published in Phytoma by the Murcian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research and Development (IMIDA) describes basic aspects of ToBRFV, such as its ease of transmission, high persistence, and the presence of other common hosts, which can help establish management strategies.

Since its discovery in 2014 in Israel, the rugose has spread rapidly through various tomato-producing areas around the world, causing significant damage. It can be transmitted mechanically and by seeds. It is considered a very stable and resistant virus, capable of maintaining its infectious capacity for weeks, months, or years, depending on the surfaces or substrates on which it is found, and resisting disinfection techniques that can be very effective on other viruses, such as solarization. In addition, it has numerous natural hosts, including herbs such as nightshade (Solanum nigrum), pigweed (Chenopodium and Amaranthus spp.), bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) or pillows (Conyza spp.), on which it can perpetuate itself in the areas it colonizes.