Host Range of Tomato Mottle Virus, a New Geminivirus Infecting Tomato in Florida. J. E. Polston, Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, IFAS, Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, Bradenton 34203. E. Hiebert, R. J. McGovern, P. A. Stansly, and D. J. Schuster. Professor, University of Florida, IFAS, Department of Plant Pathology, Gainesville 32611; Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology, Assistant Professor of Entomology, University of Florida, IFAS, Southwest Florida Research and Education Center, Immokolee 33934; and Professor of Entomology, University of Florida, IFAS, Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, Bradenton 34203. Plant Dis. 77:1181-1184. Accepted for publication 9 September 1993. Copyright 1993 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/PD-77-1181.

A geminivirus causing mottling, upward leaf curling, and stunting was observed infecting tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. var. esculentum) throughout production areas of Florida since 1989; and it has been named the tomato mottle virus (TMoV). The virus was inoculated by whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius)) to 41 plant species representing eight families. Species of four genera became infected, three in the Solanaceae (Lycopersicon, Nicotiana, and Physalis) and one in the Fabaceae (Phaseolus). The infection in Phaseolus vulgaris L. was symptomless and was identified by nucleic acid spot hybridization with a full-length B component probe and by back inoculation to tomato by whiteflies. TMoV resembled other tomato-infecting geminiviruses from the Western Hemisphere in its narrow host range, in which species of the Solanaceae were predominate, but differed in the type of symptoms produced in tomato and in the species of hosts which were infected. Transmission via tomato seed was not found in 3,000 seedlings examined.