Grassy shoot of sugarcane is caused by

🔑 Key Points
📝 Brief description.
→ Sugarcane grassy shoot disease (SCGS) is associated with phytoplasmas.
→ Losses are higher in the ratoon crop.
→ The disease is primarily transmitted through infected setts, and secondary transmission takes place through insect vectors.

📌 Important Points
→ Symptoms:
→ The initial symptom appears in the young crop of 3 – 4 months of age as thin papery white young leaves at the top of the cane.
→ Later, white or yellow tillers appear in large numbers below these leaves (profuse tillering).
→ The cane becomes stunted with reduced internodal length and axillary bud sprouting.
→ This disease appears in isolated clumps.

📝 Additional Information
→ Phytoplasmas
→ Phytoplasmas are obligate intracellular parasites of plant phloem tissue and of the insect vectors that are involved in their plant-to-plant transmission.
→ These are single-cell organisms with only a unit membrane.
→ They lack a rigid cell wall.