VIEW ARTICLE

Vector Relations

Confirmation of Polymyxa graminis as a Vector of Wheat Spindle Streak Mosaic Virus. J. T. Slykhuis, Research Scientist, formerly Research Station, Agriculture Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Present address: Research Station, Agriculture Canada, Summerland, British Columbia V0H 1Z0; D. J. S. Barr, Research Scientist, Biosystematics Research Institute, Agriculture Canada, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C6. Phytopathology 68:639-643. Accepted for publication 4 October 1977. Copyright © 1978 The American Phytopathological Society, 3340 Pilot Knob Road, St. Paul, MN 55121. All rights reserved.. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-68-639.

Wheat spindle streak mosaic virus was transmitted via water from soil-free roots of wheat plants infected by growing in infective soil, but not from plants grown in sterile soil and infected with the virus by sap inoculation of the leaves. The zoosporic fungi Lagena radicicola, Olpidium brassicae, Polymyxa graminis, Rhizophydium graminis, and Pythium spp. usually were present in the roots of plants infected from soil, and in the roots of most plants in 10 sets infected successively by root association in sterilized sand. When isolates of each of the zoosporic fungi were cultured on wheat infected with the virus by sap inoculation of leaves, the virus was transmitted by root association in sand only from plants infected with P. graminis. The optimum temperature for transmission of the virus in soil, 15 C, is above the optimum for the development of the virus, 10 C, but within the lower range of temperatures favorable for the development of P. graminis.