New Tomato Virus

New Tomato Virus

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Another virus is exactly what U.S. tomato growers don’t need, but according to reports from southern Florida, a new virus that affects peanuts and tomatoes has been identified. Groundnut ringspot virus (GRSV) was found in samples collected last winter. This is the first time the virus has been seen within the U.S., and it expands the number of viruses causing disease in Florida tomatoes.

While it is still too early to answer all the questions that go along with identification of a new virus, according to Scott Adkins, a research plant pathologist with USDA’s Agriculture Research Service (ARS), based in Fort Pierce, FL, there is relatively good news. Groundnut ringspot virus appears to be closely related to tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), another virus that is commonly found on tomatoes and peanuts in the southern U.S.

GRSV was originally identified in peanut (groundnut) in South Africa and tomato in Brazil, but to date it has only been found on tomatoes in the southern part of the Florida peninsula. Adkins, who works at the U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory, says efforts are gearing up to test other species for the virus in Florida. “We are still trying to define where GRSV is, what it is affecting, and what is transmitting it in Florida,” Adkins says. “We don’t have a full story yet, so there are not that many answers.”

Potential Plan Of Attack

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Though the virus is elusive, what is known about GRSV is that, like TSWV, it is transmitted by thrips, and can cause necrotic spots and flecks, chlorotic areas, deformation on leaves, necrotic lesions on stems, and petioles on tomatoes. If left unchecked, it will affect the quality of the fruit, as well. “TSWV and GRSV are very similar viruses,” Adkins says. “They are transmitted by the same insect, affecting the same host — tomato. Those close relationships we hope will help us adopt the same strategies used on TSWV to groundnut, where it could become a problem of the magnitude of TSWV.”
 
These disease control strategies include highly reflective mulch, reducing use of insecticides to encourage beneficial insects, rotating use of chemical classes to discourage insect resistance, and other thrips management techniques developed by horticulture Extension specialist Steve Olson and his colleagues at the University of Florida’s North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy to manage TSWV. “We’re in the very early stages of the game and we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Adkins says. “If GRSV looks like it has a toehold this fall on tomatoes, it would be easy to put TSWV strategies in place to manage it. TSWV hasn’t been a big problem this year, so growers haven’t really been working with those techniques because they haven’t needed to. But again, it depends on if GRSV will be a problem, which we don’t know yet.”

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