D'Arcy, C.J. and L.L. Domier. 2000. Barley yellow dwarf. The Plant Health Instructor. DOI: 10.1094/PHI-I-2000-1103-01
Updated, 2005.

DISEASE:  Barley yellow dwarf

PATHOGEN:  Barley yellow dwarf virus,
                           Cereal yellow dwarf virus

HOSTS:  barley, oats, wheat, maize, rice and other grasses

Authors
Cleora J. D’Arcy, University of Illinois
Leslie L. Domier, USDA-ARS, University of Illinois

Barley yellow dwarf (BYD) is a worldwide virus disease of our most important grasses, including wheat, rice and maize. In the mid-1900s, the yellowing symptoms, transmission by aphids, and lack of transmission by rubbing (mechanical inoculation) differentiated BYD from many other plant virus diseases. BYD has served as a model for study of the “yellowing” virus diseases of plants and for elucidation of the mechanisms of circulative (also called persistent) virus transmission by aphids.

Like many plant diseases that are caused by viruses, barley yellow dwarf (BYD) is named for an economically important host (barley) and the typical symptoms (yellowing, dwarfing) that develop when the host is infected with the virus. Yellowing and reddening of cereal crops had been noted in many areas of the world for decades, but it was not until 1951 that J.W. Oswald and B.R. Houston, two plant pathologists who worked in California, proposed that a virus was causing these symptoms. Today, the viruses that cause BYD are classified in the family Luteoviridae under two different genera: Luteovirus and Polerovirus. The most common causal agents of BYD are the luteoviruses Barley yellow dwarf virus-MAV (BYDV-MAV) and Barley yellow dwarf virus-PAV (BYDV-PAV) and the polerovirus Cereal yellow dwarf virus-RPV (CYDV-RPV). (Courtesy L.L. Domier)