• Narrow distribution. Papua New Guinea. On sugarcane, wild relatives and grasses. A major disease.
• Cane thin, stunted, with short erect leaves, and green to yellow streaks of varying length. Some or all shoots may die, depending on susceptibility.
• Spread by a planthopper.
• Cultural control: in smallholder plots remove plants and burn; resistant varieties (main method).
• Chemical control: none recommended as uneconomic; synthetic pyrethroids used in times of epidemics (1986).

Ramu stunt disease

Sugarcane Ramu stunt disease. Initially, the cause of the disease was thought to be a virus; later, phytoplasmas were detected (related to sugarcane white leaf phytoplasmas) in diseased plants and also in planthoppers (Eumetopina flavipes), which may spread the disease. More recently, a virus has again been suggested. Advanced RNA sequencing techniques may have found a virus belonging to the Tenuivirus group.