Several viruses infecting strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) have been identified in Iran in recent years (Hajizadeh et al. 2022). Further investigation to determine the presence of other known viruses in commercial fields led to the detection of strawberry polerovirus 1 (SPV1). SPV1 was discovered in 2015 in eastern of Canada in samples showing decline symptoms (Xiang et al. 2015), and was subsequently detected in the United States, Argentina, the Czech Republic, and Nepal (Kwak et al. 2022). SPV1 is related to member species of genus Polerovirus, family Solemoviridae.

During the 2019 and 2022 seasons, 153 leaf samples of strawberries which 62% of plants had symptoms including yellowing, decline, mild mosaic, and leaf margin burn, were collected from commercial fields of north (Mazandaran, Guilan and Golestan Provinces) and west (Kurdistan Province) Iran, two main strawberry-growing regions. Total RNA was extracted using the silica-capture method and subjected to cDNA synthesis using random hexamer primers (Easy™ cDNA Synthesis kit, Parstous Iran). PCR was done using specific primers SPV-FC (5-TGGTCCAAAATTGGCCCAGGTA-3) and SPV-RC (5-GGACGTCTGGCCATTAACTGT-3) (this work), amplifying 870 nt fragment containing 632 nt of 3’ end region of the P1-P2 fusion protein gene. The expected DNA fragment was amplified from 8 samples (5.2% of tested samples). Three PCR products were sequenced to validate their nature. The sequences had 99.8–100% identity at the nucleotide level. Two sequences were submitted to GenBank as accession numbers OR873623 and OR873624. They showed 98.8–98.9% nucleotide identity with SPV1 isolate AB5301 (accession No. NC_025435) from Canada. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of SPV1 from Iran.