Department of Virology, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati-517502.
Abstracts of Research Papers Presented during the National Symposium of Indian Virological Society at Unit of Plant Virology, Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110 012, October 14–1.
Groundnut or peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a annual legume crop grown extensively in many tropical and subtropical areas as a rich source of oil and dietory protein. The major groundnut producing countries are India, China, USA, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Myanmar, Indonesia and Argentina. In India it is intercropped with other oil seed, grain legume and cereal and millet crops. Poor yields in many of the developing and underdeveloped countries are due to several pests and pathogens. Among pathogens, about 30 characterized viruses representing 14 plant virus genera/groups are reported to naturally infect groundnut in different countries. In addition, there are several reports on virus or virus-like diseases of groundnut and later the aetiology of some of these proved to be due to already reported viruses. Based on their distribution, natural incidence and impact on growth and yield, tomato spotted wilt (TSWV), peanut bud necrosis (PBNV), peanut clump (PCV), groundnut rosette assistor virus (GRAV) groundnut rosette (GRV, satellite RNA), peanut mottle (PMV) peanut stripe (PStV) and tobacco streak (TSV) viruses are considered to be economically important constraints in groundnut production, PMV, PStV, PCV, peanut stunt (PSV), cowpea mild mottle (CMMV, severe strain) cucumber mosaic (CMV) and cowpea aphid-borne mosaic (CABMV) viruses that are seed transmitted have quarantine importance. Some of the groundnut infecting viruses (TSWV, PBNV, TSV, PMV, PStV, PCV) also naturally infect several other crops like solanaceous vegetable, grain legume, oil seed and cereal and millet crops and ornamentals in different countries. The distribution, biological (host-range, transmission, inclusions, virus stability), virion morphology and molecular (genomes) characteristics, diagnostics (bioassay, ELISA, nucleic acid hybridization and PCR) and available management practices including transgenics for economically important viruses naturally infecting groundnut will be discussed.
