THE INFLUENCE OF HEAT-LABILE VIRUSES OF RASPBERRY COMMON MOSAIC ON GROWTH AND CROPPING OF RED RASPBERRY

Plants of red raspberry cv ‘Schoenemann’ proved to be highly sensitive to infection by heat-labile viruses of raspberry common mosaic, raspberry leaf mottle, raspberry leaf spot, and black raspberry necrosis viruses.
Yield and fruit size were reduced by 70 and 33 %, respectively, as compared to plants of the same cv free from known Rubus viruses.
This reduction was due to a considerable decrease in length and diameter of fruiting canes and laterals and to a significant reduction in leaf number and leaf surface area.
Also number of flowers per inflorescence and number of seeds per fruit as well as length and strength of young canes were strongly influenced by the infection.
Number of nodes per m cane length of virus-free young canes was smaller than that of infected plants.
However, no decrease in yield was observed in the following year.
The reduced number of laterals seems to be compensated for by their increased length and by a higher number, increased surface area, and better photosynthetic activity of leaves on virus-free canes.

IV International Symposium on Small Fruit Virus Diseases

G. Baumann, K. Hoffmann

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1986.186.5