THE SPREAD OF VIRUS DISEASES TO SINGLE POTATO PLANTS BY WINGED APHIDS

Young potato plants in pots exposed in the open near plots of potatoes for limited periods at intervals during the summer, became infested with large numbers of winged aphids only during warm, calm and dry weather. Although visited by aphids during May and June, when much of the spread of viruses occurred in nearby potato crops, few of the potted plants became infected. Most potted plants became infected in July when alate aphids were leaving neighbouring potato crops. Widely different proportions of the exposed plants became infected in different years; in two of the three years, many more plants were infected with virus Y than with leaf roll virus.     

THE USE OF SOIL INSECTICIDES TO CONTROL POTATO APHIDS AND VIRUS DISEASES

A replicated trial was done to find whether the insecticides Thimet and Rogor applied in the soil affected the spread of aphid-transmitted viruses from infected to healthy plants with potato crops. The insecticides were applied at planting as activated carbon formulations at rates equal in cost to three sprays with DDT emulsion at 2 lb. DDT per acre. The infected plants were removed (rogued) in late June.
Thimet applied along the furrows with the fertilizer, and Rogor applied in individual doses beneath each tuber, kept the plants free from aphids from a week after the plants emerged until early August. Thimet in individual doses was less effective but greatly decreased the aphid infestation. All treatments prevented or greatly decreased the spread of leaf-roll virus, but they only slightly decreased the spread of virus Y. No treatment damaged the plants or depressed yields significantly.
Tubers harvested from the plots treated with insecticides contained only very small quantities of the insecticides, but shoots from them, when infested with adult Myzus persicae (Sulz.), carried fewer aphids a week after infestation than did shoots from control tubers. Shoots of tubers from treated plots also grew more slowly than those from the controls.
The aphicidal efficiency of Thimet applied as individual doses separated from the tubers by distances of up to 6 in., decreased as the distance increased, but the effect of distance became less as time passed.
Reasons for the differences in the behaviour of the insecticides are discussed, and the possibilities that the method offers to control virus diseases. The application of insecticides to soil promises to be a useful way of controlling the spread of viruses, provided the harvested crop is free from toxic residues.     

THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT HOST PLANTS OF POTATO VIRUS C IN DETERMINING ITS TRANSMISSION BY APHIDS

A stock of potato virus C derived from Edgecote Purple potatoes in 1945 was not then transmitted by aphids, although more than 2000 aphids were used in conditions optimal for transmitting the serologically related potato virus Y. This stock of virus C has been propagated continuously since, by manual inoculation in a series of Nicotiana glutinosa and N. tabacum , and in 1955 it was transmitted by the aphid Myzus persicae (Sulz.): about one in twenty of the aphids transmitted it compared with one in two for potato virus Y.
Virus C derived from the Edgecote Purple potatoes in 1955 was not transmitted by aphids; both stocks of virus C produced only local lesions in Majestic potato leaves, and gave similar symptoms in tobacco.
When inoculated to Majestic potatoes and then returned to tobacco plants, potato virus C usually ceased to be aphid transmitted and did not recover this property in any of the subsequent subcultures.
Transmission from stock by aphids did not isolate a strain of virus C which was any more readily transmitted by aphids, indeed, for the first two or three subcultures, aphids usually transmitted more readily from plants inoculated manually. But the few isolates which remained aphid transmissible, after a second passage through potato, were rather readily transmitted.
These results suggest that the ability of a virus to be aphid transmitted is, at least in part, determined by the host plant in which it is multiplying, but the nature of the changes which determine this ability are unknown.     

THE CONTROL OF POTATO VIRUS DISEASES BY INSECTICIDES

Replicated trials were carried out in the years 1950, 1951, 1953 and 1954 to see if the spread of leaf-roll virus and virus Y in potato crops could be reduced by applying insecticides. The crops were disease-free, except for small numbers of deliberately introduced infected plants, and were sprayed at intervals of 10 or 14 days, according to the stage of growth of the plants, with a tractor-mounted spraying machine at 1OO gal./acre/application. Disease spread was estimated by growing tubers taken from the five plants on either side of each infector. DDT emulsion, DDT suspension, endrin, schradan, mipafox, malathion, parathion and Systox prevented the spread of leaf-roll virus and decreased the spread of virus Y, although DDT emulsion was the only insecticide used in all the trials. Dieldrin and toxaphene were ineffective. When virus control was successful, aphid control (estimated by counting apterae in the crops) was good.     

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF VIRUS DISEASES IN PLANTS

In this paper the movement in the plant of the causative agent of virus disease is discussed. The relevant data in the literature are summarised.
A method is described whereby a portion of the stem in the middle of a tomato plant was killed either by chloroform or by steam. In this way the living upper and lower portions of the plant were connected by a bridge of dead tissue. It is shown that the symptoms appeared in that part of the plant in which the inoculation was made. The virus agent did not travel across the dead region.
The xylem tracts were not materially affected by this treatment, and water travelled across the region. Evidence of this is the fact that the distal portion remained turgid and sometimes continued growth for a considerable time. If the stem were removed above the ground level and put into eosin solution, this travelled readily over the dead tissue. That the vessels were not occluded by protein plugs is shown by the fact that particulate substances were carried up the xylem tracts past the dead region.
No evidence of adsorption of the virus agent to the cell remains could be adduced, so it is assumed that it was not travelling in the xylem stream.     

THE INFLUENCE OF PLANTING DATE AND MANURING ON THE INCIDENCE OF VIRUS DISEASES IN POTATO CROPS

Field experiments with Majestic potatoes were made over six years at Rothamsted to test the effects of varying date of planting and manuring on the yield of tubers and the incidence of the aphid-transmitted leaf roll and Y (rugose mosaic) viruses. Yield was increased by early planting, and by all the manures, especially dung. Early planting also usually increased the incidence of virus disease. Different manures had different effects on disease incidence; the average results from all comparisons showed the largest increase in incidence of both viruses from the use of dung; sulphate of ammonia increased the incidence of leaf roll, and muriate of potash that of rugose mosaic. Counts in two years showed that aphid populations were highest on the earlier planted potatoes, and were increased by dung, sulphate of ammonia and superphosphate, but were reduced by muriate of potash.     

EXPERIMENTS BEARING ON THE NATURE OF INTRACELLULAR INCLUSIONS IN PLANT VIRUS DISEASES

The intracellular changes resultant on infection with aucuba mosaic and Hy. III diseases are described and are compared with the cytological effects of tobacco mosaic virus. With the two former viruses, inclusion bodies are formed by the aggregation and fusion of minute particles which appear in the cytoplasmic stream. With tobacco mosaic disease an amoeba-like body is produced and this persists for some weeks before suddenly disappearing again. It is accompanied by striate material all of which ultimately fuses into one large body.
Attempts have been made to parallel these conditions in healthy cells of Solanaceous plants by treatment with substances known to coagulate protoplasm. Almost all the reagents used induced stimulation of the cytoplasmic stream similar to the initial sign of virus infection. With salts of molybdic acid, all the cytological abnormalities due to aucuba mosaic or Hy. III disease have been imitated. Treatment with lactic acid induces the formation of amoeboid bodies like the X-bodies of tobacco mosaic, but these bodies persist for only a few hours.
Attempts have also been made to inhibit the formation of inclusion bodies induced by several different diseases in a number of hosts but no success was obtained.
The experiments support the view that the intracellular inclusions of plant virus diseases are essentially products of the host cell.