Overview on century progress in research on mosaic disease of apple (Malus domestica Borkh) incited by apple mosaic virus/apple necrotic mosaic virus.

Apple mosaic is widely distributed disease throughout the apple growing regions leading to the major adverse effects both qualitatively and quantitatively. Earlier the apple mosaic virus-ApMV was regarded as the only causal agent of the disease, but recently a novel virus apple necrotic mosaic virus-ApNMV have been reported as the causal pathogen from various apple growing countries. Accurate diagnosis of disease and detection of ApMV and ApNMV are of utmost importance, because without this ability we can neither understand nor control this disease. Both the viruses are mostly controlled through quarantine, isolation, sanitation and certification programs depending on sensitive and specific detection methods available. Here we review the 100-year progress in research on apple mosaic disease, which includes history, yield losses, causal agents, their genome organization, replication, traditional to recent detection methods, transmission, distribution and host range of associated viruses and management of the disease.