VIEW ARTICLE

Ecology and Epidemiology

Phenotypic Response of Six Soybean Cultivars To Bean Pod Mottle Virus Infection. M. T. Windham, Former graduate student, Department of Plant Pathology, USDA, North Carolina Agricultural Research Service, Raleigh 27650, Present address of senior author: Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins 80523; J. P. Ross, research plant pathologist, Department of Plant Pathology, USDA, North Carolina Agricultural Research Service, Raleigh 27650. Phytopathology 75:305-309. Accepted for publication 18 September 1984. 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, 1985. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-75-305.

Response of six soybean cultivars to infection by bean pod mottle virus was monitored during two growing seasons for chlorotic leaf area, leaf rugosity, and canopy width and height reduction. Symptoms were most severe on the cultivars Centennial and/or Forrest and mildest on Davis. Yield losses ranged from 3- 13% and 4- 10% in 1981 and 1982, respectively. Yield reductions were correlated (P=0.05) with both chlorotic leaf area and leaf rugosity (r = 0.998 and 0.961 in 1981, and r = 0.910 and 0.928 in 1982, respectively). Bean pod mottle virus-inoculated cultivars Ransom and Centennial had greater leaf chlorophyll concentrations after flowering than uninoculated plants, whereas chlorophyll concentrations in Davis did not vary between inoculated and uninoculated plants. Plants inoculated at the two-leaf stage (V2) developed the most severe symptoms, whereas the mildest symptoms developed in plants inoculated at the V9 growth stage. Degree of symptom expression of inoculated, greenhouse-grown plants during the winter differed from that of the characteristic symptoms developed by plants of the same cultivars when field grown.