The effect of additional viral infections on garlic plants

M. CECILIA PEROTTO; EVA E. CAFRUNE,; VILMA C. CONCI

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PLANT PATHOLOGY

Springer

Lugar: Netherlands; Año: 2009

0929-1873

Yield losses caused by a second viralinfection of garlic plants previously infected witheither of the isolated Allexiviruses, Garlic virus-A(GarV-A) or Garlic virus-C (GarV-C), were evaluatedin a field assay carried out over four consecutivegrowing seasons. The treatment groups includedvirus-free plants (VF), plants infected only withGarV-A isolates (A), plants infected only withGarV-C isolates (C), and plants infected with amixture of viruses that naturally infect garlic, referredto as viral-complex plants (VC). From the first cropcycle the different treatments were infected by otherviruses that naturally infect garlic. At the end of thefirst growth cycle, significant differences in yieldwere observed among the four treatments. The bulbweight for VF, C, and A treatments was respectively137%, 116%, and 96% higher than the bulb weightfor the VC treatment. After the fourth growth cycle,however, non-significant differences in garlic yieldbetween the VC, C, and A treatments were observed,whereas the yield for the VF treatment was higherthan the VC treatment by 22%. Garlic yield decreasedmore rapidly in plants infected previously with atleast one Allexivirus and then infected with othernaturally occurring viruses than the plants that werevirus-free at the beginning (VF plants)