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  • From: "Kevin Ancell" <kancell AT goodearthgardens.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Corn Viruses
  • Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 04:09:56 -0700


US ARS: Two new corn viruses discovered


April 20, 2001





Agricultural Research Service scientists and cooperators at Ohio State
University have discovered two new corn viruses, one in Georgia and one in
Arizona. The Arizona virus is in a family of viruses previously known only
to attack broadleaf plants such as tomatoes and peppers, not grain crops
like corn.
Peg Redinbaugh, an ARS plant molecular biologist at Wooster, Ohio, and
colleagues named the Arizona virus "maize necrotic streak."

The team of scientists receives and identifies viruses in samples of
infected corn leaves from around the world. The service provides global
producers of corn and corn seed a first line of defense against new
diseases.
Maize necrotic streak is in the Tombusvirus family, which comprises viruses
that tend to spread by soil rather than by insects, making them less likely
to spread widely. Another reason this virus promises not to be spread beyond
Arizona is that it doesn't seem to spread from plant to plant. Its symptoms
first show as white- or cream-colored streaks on leaves. It eventually kills
the leaves, turning them papery and translucent, with brown spots.
Lab tests indicate that a cornfield infected by the new virus would be
unlikely to yield any corn. That's why scientists have to take it seriously.

Other Tombusviruses, like tomato bushy stunt virus, cause growers
significant losses.
The Georgia virus, temporarily called the Georgia Unknown, is one of the
plant- infecting rhabdoviruses, a family of bullet-shaped viruses which
includes maize mosaic virus, a major corn disease in the tropics. Viruses in
this family tend to be transmitted by any of a number of different common
aphids, thrips, mites and other insects.
The team is currently testing its living collection of insects to see which
of them transmit the Georgia Unknown, which may be limited to the southern
United States.

ARS is the chief scientific research agency in the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
CONTACT: Don Comis, USDA
Tel: +1 301 504 1625
e-mail: comis AT ars.usda.gov
Peg Redinbaugh, ARS Corn and Soybean Research Unit
Tel: +1 330 263 3965
Fax: +1 330 263 3841
e-mail: redinbaugh.2 AT osu.edu




  • Corn Viruses, Kevin Ancell, 04/23/2001

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