THE DISTRIBUTION OF HOP LATENT VIROID WITHIN A COMMERCIAL PLANTING OF HOP (HUMULUS LUPULUS) CULTIVAR WYE CHALLENGER.

Rates and patterns of spread of hop latent viroid (HLVd) were studied in two established hop plantings.
The results showed that when overall density of infection was low, spread was slow and that new infections were not more likely to be adjacent to previously infected plants than to uninfected ones.
Also, there was no clear gradient of infection away from an adjacent planting with a high density of infection, an obvious potential source of infection.
At the high density of infection, the probability of a plant becoming infected was higher but as all the uninfected plants identified were adjacent to infected ones the pattern of spread could not be studied.
These results suggest that at a low overall density of infection, the primary means of spread is not by simple plant-to-adjacent-plant spread through contact or on tools.
Whether a vector or some more subtle means of mechanical inoculation is involved will require further studies.

XV International Symposium on Small Fruit Virus Diseases

D.J. BARBARA, A.N. ADAMS, A. MORTON, M.S. RIDOUT

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1992.308.10