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Ecology and Epidemiology

Incidence of the Lentil Strain of Pea Seedborne Mosaic Virus as a Contaminant of Lens culinaris Germ Plasm. R. O. Hampton, U.S. Department of Agricultural, Agricultural Research Service, Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis 97331; Phytopathology 72:695-698. Accepted for publication 28 September 1981. This article is in the public domain and not copyrightable. It may be freely reprinted with customary crediting of the source. The American Phytopathological Society, 1982. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-72-695.

Seedlot samples of 570 Plant Introduction (PI) accessions of Lens culinaris were planted in greenhouses and the resultant seedlings were tested for the presence of seedborne virus by local lesion assays on Chenopodium amaranticolor leaves. A seedborne virus, designated the lentil strain of pea seedborne mosaic virus (PSbMV-L), was detected in 38 of 570 accessions. Incidence of PSbMV-L in five selected accessions ranged from <5 to 10%. Although plants of PI accessions arising from infected seeds usually showed no symptoms, isolates from infected accessions readily induced severe symptoms in plants of commercial lentil cultivars including Chilian, Tekoa, and Precoz. Of 23 other plant species and cultivars tested as possible hosts, PSbMV-L was infectious only to C. amaranticolor, Vicia faba var. minor, and one (Tempter) of 25 pea cultivars. The virus was not seed transmitted in Tempter peas. PSbMV-L was transmitted from infected to healthy Tekoa lentil plants by sets of three pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) at frequencies ranging from 55 to 88%. PSbMV-L was distinguished from the standard U.S. strain of PSbMV by nonpathogenicity to most pea cultivars, by pathogenicity to L. culinaris germ plasm sources independently of PSbMV-immunity-conferring gene sbv, by an inoculum reservoir apparently restricted to infected lentil seed, by comparative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and by intrinsic particle instability. Conversely, the two strains produced identical symptoms in Tekoa lentil and on leaves of C. amaranticolor and were indistinguishable by SDS-gel immunodiffusion serology or by immunosorbent electron microscopy.