Hop line-pattern virus in relation to the etiology and distribution of nettlehead disease

Hop line-pattern virus (HLPV) was transmissible by mechanical inoculation to hop plants; it induced characteristic severe symptoms in Humulus lupulus L. var. neo-mexicanus Nels. & Cockerell and the commercial derivatives College Cluster and Keyworth's Midseason, but none in the traditional English varieties of H. lupulus (e.g. Fuggle).
Mechanical transmission of hop nettlehead virus (HNV) was facilitated by the presence of HLPV in the test plants; hop seedlings and clonal plants escaped infection by sap inoculum that infected plants of two varieties already infected with HLPV. HNV was also transferred by stem contact and by knife cuts to plants carrying HLPV.
Infection with HLPV was latent in twelve nettlehead-diseased Fuggle plants from different fields, and in diseased and symptomless plants in a nettlehead outbreak in W.G.V., a variety that previously had escaped infection. It is suggested either that HLPV predisposes hop plants to infection with HNV or that nettlehead disease is caused by dual infection with both viruses.
Localized and scattered patterns of nettlehead spread were observed in hop plantations; these two types are usually attributed to different modes of spread which would be compatible with a complex etiology of the disease.