Department of Plant Pathology, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Kumarganj, Faizabad-224 229, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the XVIII National Conference of Indian Virological Society at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, December 11–13, 2008.
Many phytopathogenic viruses infect a wide range of crops and cause great economic losses every year through out the world. Insect vectors may be controlled by the use of insecticides to prevent the spread of viruses, but all the insecticides are very costly and after indiscriminate use for longer time they leave residues in crop produces, soil, water and environment. Plant products (Boerhaavia diffusa root extract) could prevent the infection and spread of many viruses in lab conditions. The glycoprotien isolated from B. diffusa induced systemic resistance in many hosts against a number of plant pathogens viruses. The resistance induced by B. diffusa was of systemic nature. The antiviral substance (glycoprotien) induced systemic resistance in hosts following the treatment might have moved from the sight of their synthesis and translocated in whole of the plant and thus protect the plant against virus infection. The systemic resistance induced by B. diffusa was reversed by the application of actinomycin-D (an inhibitor of DNA dependent RNA synthesis). Further, we have demonstrated that the infection of tomato leaf curl, chilly mosaic, cucumber mosaic, begomoviruses and papaya ring spot viruse may be prevented by seed treatment followed by nursery treatments and sprays in field.
