Chickpea chlorotic stunt virus, an important virus of cool‐season food legumes in Asia and North Africa and potentially in Australia

Chickpea chlorotic stunt virus (CpCSV), a proposed new member of the genus Polerovirus (family Luteoviridae) was first described in Ethiopia in 2006 (1) and has since been reported from Eritrea, Syria (3), Egypt, Morocco and Sudan. It naturally infects many legume crops (e.g., chickpea, lentil, field pea, faba bean) as well as some leguminous weeds and four wild non‐legume plant species. Typical symptoms of CpCSV‐infected plants are leaf rolling, yellowing and stunting (Figure 1‐A). CpCSV is a phloem‐limited virus that is present in very low concentrations and transmitted only by aphids (Aphis craccivora Koch.) in a persistent manner. This study reports the use of a few monoclonal antibodies to CpCSV for detecting different CpCSV isolates from 8 countries in Asia and North Africa.