Impact of Timing and Method of Virus Inoculation on the Severity of Wheat Streak Mosaic Disease

Abstract

Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV), transmitted by the wheat curl mite Aceria tosichella, frequently causes significant yield loss in winter wheat throughout the Great Plains of the United States. A field study was conducted in the 2013–14 and 2014–15 growing seasons to compare the impact of timing of WSMV inoculation (early fall, late fall, or early spring) and method of inoculation (mite or mechanical) on susceptibility of winter wheat cultivars Mace (resistant) and Overland (susceptible). Relative chlorophyll content, WSMV incidence, and yield components were determined. The greatest WSMV infection occurred for Overland, with the early fall inoculations resulting in the highest WSMV infection rate (up to 97%) and the greatest yield reductions relative to the control (up to 94%). In contrast, inoculation of Mace resulted in low WSMV incidence (1 to 28.3%). The findings from this study indicate that both method of inoculation and wheat cultivar influenced severity of wheat streak mosaic; however, timing of inoculation also had a dramatic influence on disease. In addition, mite inoculation provided much more consistent infection rates and is considered a more realistic method of inoculation to measure disease impact on wheat cultivars.

Temperature-dependent development and survival of an invasive genotype of wheat curl mite, Aceria tosichella

“…In addition to being an economically important pest species, WCM is the de facto model for the study of Eriophyoidea, due to the relative ease with which it can be collected from the field, on at least four continents (Carew et al 2009;Skoracka et al 2012Skoracka et al , 2014bSkoracka et al , 2018aMiller et al 2013;Karpicka-Ignatowska et al 2019;Khalaf et al 2020), and with which it can be cultured in the laboratory (e.g., Karpicka-Ignatowska et al 2019), as well as its well-documented genetic and physiological diversity (Carew et al 2009;Hein et al 2012;Navia et al 2013;Szydło et al 2015; 6.9 6.5-7.5 29 6.7 6.2-7.2 30 6.4 5.9-6.9 31 6.2 5.6-6.8 32 5.9 5.3-6.7 33 5.7 5.0-6.6 Skoracka et al 2018a). Such studies have yielded important data on passive dispersal in microscopic eukaryotes (Laska et al 2019;Karpicka-Ignatowska et al 2019), virus transmission by herbivorous arthropods (Seifers et al 2002;Schiffer et al 2009;Navia et al 2013;Hein 2015, 2017;Wosula et al 2018;Singh et al 2018;Tatineni and Hein 2018), physiology (Wosula et al 2015), genetics (Miller et al 2013;Skoracka et al 2018a), ecology and behavior (Kiedrowicz et al 2017;Laska et al 2019), distribution (Schiffer et al 2009;Navia et al 2010Navia et al , 2013Skoracka et al 2014b;Khalaf et al 2020), as well as specific assessments of its impact on crop losses (Navia et al 2013;McMechan et al 2014;...…”

High Plains wheat mosaic virus: An enigmatic disease of wheat and corn causing the High Plains disease

“…As temperature warms up in the spring, wheat curl mites can again build up and spread the virus (Figure 4 ), but virus impact in winter wheat from spring‐initiated infections is much less than from autumn infections (Hunger et al, 1992 ; Wosula et al, 2018 ). Mite infestations of spring wheat are possible from heavily mite‐infested winter wheat or overwintering volunteer wheat.…”

The Interface Between Wheat and the Wheat Curl Mite, Aceria tosichella, the Primary Vector of Globally Important Viral Diseases

“…The tight curling at the leaf edge resulting from mite feeding is often apparent. The severity of symptoms and subsequent yield impact from virus infection in wheat depends on the plant stage at first infection ( Hunger et al, 1992 ; Wosula et al, 2018 ). Plants infected prior to or during tillering will eventually become severely stunted, discolored, and take on a very prostrate growth pattern.…”