EFFECT OF SOME VIRUS DISEASES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF TWO CLONES OF ‘AGUA DE ARANJUEZ’ PEAR

Studies of the effects of the most common pear and apple virus diseases on productivity, vigour, external symptomatology and performance were made with the pear variety cv ‘Agua de Aranjuez’, one of the most commonly grown pear varieties in Spain.

Virus free clones of ‘Agua de Aranjuez’ pear, AA 840T and AA 1831T, which had previously shown large differences in productivity when grafted on quince Provence C, were grafted on quince C(EMLA). Some of these trees were inoculated with pear vein yellows (PVY) or with a complex of the apple latent virus diseases, apple chlorotic leaf spot virus (ACLSV), stem grooving virus (SGV), stem pitting (SP) and spy decline (SD).

In the five years following plantation, trees infected with PVY displayed strong symptoms in their leaves but neither the trees infected with apple latent virus diseases nor the inoculated one showed any external symptom.
At the end of the 5^th year, the cumulated crop was lower in infected trees than in healthy ones.
Productivity was significantly reduced in trees inoculated with latent virus diseases.
PVY induced a slight reduction of productivity, probably minimized by the dwarfing effect of quince C.

V International Symposium on Pear Growing

R. Gella

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1989.256.16