Location: Crop Improvement and Protection Research
Project Number: 2038-22000-020-021-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Apr 1, 2024
End Date: Mar 31, 2025
Objective:
Research will be conducted to understand how differences in virus distribution in lettuce plants, including sources of resistance or tolerance to impatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV), may influence plant quality and virus transmission. Objectives will include determining differences in symptom severity, distribution and accumulation of INSV in lettuce plants (romaine and crisphead). Work will also compare efficiency of thrips acquisition and transmission of INSV from plants with differential virus distribution (tops vs. roots) as has been observed in previous studies with INSV and related viruses.
Approach:
Lettuce plants of varieties or breeding lines known through recent studies to differ in virus distribution in lettuce tissue will be examined for symptom severity following thrips inoculation of INSV. Plants will be scored using a rating scale for disease severity differences. Virus distribution and accumulation will be determined by collection of tissue from different sections of romaine and crisphead lettuce plants, extraction of plant sap and evaluated of sap for virus titer by ELISA (serological method that can quantifiy virus levels) using antiserum specific for detection of INSV. Plants differing in INSV distribution and tissue-specific virus accumulation will be evaluated for the efficiency by which thrips vectors can acquire virus from infected source plants and subsequently, their efficiency in spreading INSV to new test plants.
