Seed transmission of Cucumber mosaic virus and Alfalfa mosaic virus in lentil seeds.

Abstract

Twenty-two lentil genotypes obtained from ICARDA Gene-Bank were evaluated for their reaction to Syrian isolates of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV; SV36-86) and alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV; SC8-86), and ability to transmit them through their seeds. Plants were mechanically inoculated under field conditions with CMV at the early flowering and early podding stages during 2000/01 growing season, and at the flowering stage during 2001/02 growing season for CMV and AMV. Randomized samples (100 and 200 samples/genotype) were tested for CMV and AMV by TBIA, three weeks after inoculation, during the two growing seasons. Results showed that CMV infection levelling response to mechanical inoculation was 7.4-35.8% in 2000/01 and 7-64.2% in 2001/02, whereas the infection level of AMV ranged between 1.9 and 80%. When germinating embryo axes of seeds collected from CMV and AMV infected lentil mother plants were tested for the presence of CMV and AMV in groups of 20 seedlings each by the TBIA, the seed transmission rate of CMV was in the range of 0.9-9.5% in 2000/01 and 0.1-1.7% in 2001/02, whereas for AMV it varied between 0.1 and 1.4% in the genotypes evaluated. This is the first report of lentil seed transmission of CMV and AMV under Syrian conditions.