370536
APS Homepage
Back


Oral: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Combating Rose Rosette Disease: Science to Practice

95-S

Rose rosette disease: History, symptoms, and viral pathogen.
I. TZANETAKIS (1), P. Di Bello (2), T. Druciarek (3) (1) Plant Pathology, University of Arkansas, U.S.A.; (2) Oregon State University, U.S.A.; (3) University of Arkansas, U.S.A.

View Presentation

Rose rosette was first described in the 1940s and has since been the most important virus disease in North America causing plant death in few years after infection. The disease is caused by the homonymous virus, a member of the eriophyid mite-transmitted genus Emaravirus which includes multipartite negative sense RNA viruses forming unique double-bound membrane particle. Rose rosette virus (RRV) is transmitted by Phyllocoptes fructiphilus (Keifer) with an acquisition access period of five days and inoculation access period of less than one hour. In contrast to anecdotal accounts, the virus can move systemically in the plant and survive between seasons. Similar to other negative strand RNA plant viruses RRV appears to replicate in its vector. Because of the difficulty controlling eriophyid mites genetic resistance appears the better control strategy. Several genotypes have been screened for resistance to the mite and the virus. Where none was found resistant to the vector, a sole genotype, ‘Stormy WeatherTM, proved resistant to the virus in both grafting and vector transmission experiments. The implications of the recent findings in disease and vector control will be discussed.