Hop stunt viroid (HSVd) infects a large number of woody plants such as grapevine, citrus, plum, peach, fig, mulberry, pear, pistachio, and almond. Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is an important crop in Turkey and very few reports described the presence of viruses or viroids affecting that crop. The viroid was recently detected in one P. vera tree out of a limited number of samples in Kahramanmaras which is one of the most important pistachio-growing areas. Therefore, an extensive research was carried out to investigate the prevalence and genetic diversity of HSVd in Kahramanmaras and two additional major pistachio growing areas. During 2016–2017, a total of 70 leaf samples from pistachio trees were collected and assayed for HSVd by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The prevalence incidence of HSVd infection was relatively low in the tested plant materials. Comparative analysis of the three Turkish HSVd-pistachio variants was performed with viroidal genome sequences from the NCBI database. Phylogenetic analysis showed that one HSVd-pistachio variant was classified with the reference HSVd isolate from Japan and formed a sub-cluster within the HSVd-hop isolates group, whereas the remaining two variants were clustered into the plum-hop/cit3 group with four Tunisian HSVd-pistachio variants. Further studies are required to verify its infectivity in healthy pistachio trees.

蛇麻草特技类病毒（HSVd）感染大量木本植物，例如葡萄，柑橘，李子，桃，无花果，桑树，梨，开心果和杏仁。开心果（Pistacia vera L.）是土耳其的重要农作物，很少有报道称存在影响该农作物的病毒或类病毒。最近在一个维氏疟原虫中检测到类病毒在Kahramanmaras的有限数量的样本中，这是最重要的开心果生长地区之一。因此，进行了广泛的研究，以调查Kahramanmaras和另外两个开心果主要产区的HSVd的流行和遗传多样性。在2016-2017年期间，总共从开心果树中收集了70个叶样品，并通过逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）测定了HSVd。在测试的植物材料中，HSVd感染的患病率相对较低。使用来自NCBI数据库的类病毒基因组序列对三种土耳其HSVd-开心果变体进行了比较分析。系统发育分析表明，一个HSVd-开心果变种与来自日本的参考HSVd分离株一起分类，并在HSVd-hop分离株组内形成了一个亚群，而其余两个变种则聚集成了带有四个突尼斯人的李子-hop / cit3组。 HSVd开心果变体。需要进一步研究以验证其在健康开心果树中的感染力。