U.S. scientists
have found a new method of fighting a virus that has beleaguered growers
of popular cucurbit crops, such as cucumbers and watermelons.
Many varieties
of the widely grown bottlegourd (Lagenaria siceraria) appear to have resistance
to Zucchini yellow mosaic virus, or ZYMV, a scourge of commercial cucurbits
that includes pumpkins, squashes and other kinds of melons.
Now two U.S.
Department of Agriculture scientists -- plant pathologist Kai-Shu Ling
and geneticist Amnon Levi -- have discovered a technique to control watermelon
pathogens and pests.
Ling and Levi,
who work at the department's Vegetable Laboratory in Charleston, S.C.,
obtained seeds for 190 bottlegourd accessions that were collected from
different parts of the world. They raised the seeds and inoculated the
bottlegourd plants with ZYMV and evaluated how well they resisted the virus.
They found 36
accessions of the 190 screened -- 33 from India alone -- were completely
resistant to ZYMV infection and another 64 accessions were partially resistant.
They also found ZYMV resistance is heritable in crosses between different
bottlegourd accessions, enabling the development of bottlegourd varieties
with enhanced virus resistance.
The research
appeared in the journal HortScience.
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2007 by United Press International.
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