The Distribution of Garlic Viruses in Leaves and Bulbs during the First Year of

VILMA CECILIA CONCI; ANA ELISA CANAVELLI; MÓNICA GRACIELA BALZARINI

JOURNAL OF PHYTOPATHOLOGY-PHYTOPATHOLOGISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2009 vol. 158 p. 186 - 193

0931-1785

Garlic plants are naturally infected with a mixture of viruses. Virus-free garlic plants, obtained by meristem culture, rapidly become reinfected when planted in the field. With the aim of understanding virus movement and fluctuations in virus concentration in leaves and cloves of garlic plants in the first year after infection, Onion yellow dwarf virus, Leek yellow stripe virus, and other viruses were analyzed by double-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Significant differences were detected in virus concentration in different leaves, but the distribution of the viruses was variable. Therefore, no one type or position of leaf is preferable for detecting virus presence. Instead, sampling any leaf at the end of the crop cycle, about 200 days after planting, is advisable because virus concentration is several times higher in older plants. The analysis of virus distribution in bulbs revealed that virus concentration was higher in early-inoculated than in late-inoculated plants. In 81% of the bulbs, cloves were either all positive or all negative in serological tests. Only in 6% of the cases were positive and negative cloves found in the same bulb, and in 13% of the bulbs, negative results coexisted with an uncertain status. The tests of virus concentration in relation to the layers of each bulb revealed important differences. Only the innermost layer showed differences with other layers, but this was poorly represented as it had fewer cloves.