Identification of Nematode Fauna in Vineyards of South of Western Azerbaijan and Determination of the Dominant Parasitic Species

Introduction: Grapevine belongs to the Vitaceae family that consists of 14 genera and about 700 species. Only in the genus Vitis fruits are edible. Italy is the largest producer of grapes and Iran has the seventh position in the world from this point of view. Western Azarbaijan province comprises a high diversity of crops including wild grapes. Although, some nematodes are free living and antagonists of another soil microfauna, the other are plant parasitic agents. Most of which live in the agricultural soils where they are widely dispersed. Effectiveness of the disease management strategies are affected by the accurate identification of the plant disease causal agents and the nematodal diseases are not the exception from this rule. Therefore, for control of the diseases caused by the nematodes, it is necessary to separate the parasitic nematodes from the suspected contaminated soils and identify them. Although separation and identification of the nematodes are partly time-consuming, it is not very complicated. Some nematodes likeXiphinema, Longidorus and Ditylenchus are cosmopolitan and catastrophic nematodes in vineyards worldwide. So far no study has been performed regarding the plant parasitic nematode in vineyards of the south of Western Azerbaijan. Therefore, in this study as an introduction to the management ofthe vineyard parasitic nematodes, the dominant nematodes of the plant were identified. In the next step, investigation of nematodes bioecology, the interaction of nematodes with the other plant pathogens, their host range and their damages to the host plants would be studied. Materials and Methods: In order to identify the fauna of plant parasitic nematodes in vineyards of the south of Western Azarbaijan, during 2013-2014, 50 soil samples were collected from the rhizosphere of grapevine. The sampling was carried out from the vineyards of five grapevine growing cities including Mahabad, Bookan, Sardasht, Piranshahr and Miyandoab. The samples were collected from the rhizosphere of grapevines from the depth between 10 and 80 cm from the soil surface after digging and separating the surface dry soil. About 2 kg soil from each vineyard from several places were collected and by means of a plastic bag was transferred to the laboratory where they were kept in the refrigerator at 4-degree centigrade until used. Nematodes were extracted from the soil by combined sieving and centrifugal-flotation method and processed to be transferred to glycerin. After