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Comparisons of Soil-Borne Wheat Mosaic Virus Isolates from Japan and the United States. T. Tsuchizaki, Plant Pathologist, Institute for Plant Virus Research, 959 Aobacho, Chiba, Japan; H. Hibino(2), and Y. Saito(3). (2)(3)Plant Pathologists, Institute for Plant Virus Research, 959 Aobacho, Chiba, Japan. Phytopathology 63:634-639. Accepted for publication 9 December 1972. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-63-634.

The host ranges of three isolates of soil-borne wheat mosaic virus (SBWMV) from Japan and three from U.S.A. were restricted mostly to Gramineae and Chenopodiaceae, and the isolates differed in symptoms they caused. Previously unreported host plants experimentally infected with SBWMV were maize, spinach, beet, Swiss chard, Tetragonia expansa, and tobacco. The three Japanese isolates tested induced necrotic local lesions or caused latent infection on tobacco, but the American isolates did not. The American isolates caused local latent infection in spinach. Infectivity of crude sap of leaves infected with any of six isolates was lost by heating at 50 - 60 C for 10 min and by aging at 15 C for 1 to 3 months. All isolates examined were associated with inclusion bodies, which were of three types. SBWMV had short particles, 110 - 160 nm, and long ones, about 300 nm in length. However, the isolates fell into three groups on the basis of lengths of their short particles and the shapes of the inclusion bodies. The six isolates examined had common antigens, but the Japanese isolates (serotype I) were partially differentiated serologically from the American isolates (serotype II). Serological relationships were not correlated with the lengths of the short particles.