Department of Plant Pathology, Centre for Plant Protection Studies, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641003.
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.
Plant viruses cause severe constraints on the growth and productivity of a wide range of economically important crops. Many viral diseases are responsible for the low production of blackgram. In Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) at Coimbatore, a TSV causing stem necrosis was noticed to an extent of 5–20 per cent (Oct-Dec 2001). The infected plants exhibit brown and necrotic spots on the young leaves and brown streaks on the petiole and stem. As the disease progresses, the tip of the stem becomes necrotised which leads to death of the plant. It was observed to cause complete yield loss (100%) when it attacked at the early stage of the crop. To minimize the virus incidence, several antiviral proteins (AVPs) were tested. Among the six AVPs tested, B. spectabilis at 10 per cent concentration reduced the number of lesions by 66.31 per cent over that of the untreated control (95.00%) followed by Prosopis juliflora (51.58%) and Mirabilis jalapa (48.45%).
