title: Tropical food legumes: virus diseases of economic importance and their control.
abstract: Diverse array of food legume crops (Fabaceae: Papilionoideae) have been adopted worldwide for their protein-rich seed. Choice of legumes and their importance vary in different parts of the world. The economically important legumes are severely affected by a range of virus diseases causing significant economic losses due to reduction in grain production, poor quality seed, and costs incurred in phytosanitation and disease control. The majority of the viruses infecting legumes are vectored by insects, and several of them are also seed transmitted, thus assuming importance in the quarantine and in the epidemiology. This review is focused on the economically important viruses of soybean, groundnut, common bean, cowpea, pigeonpea, mungbean, urdbean, chickpea, pea, faba bean, and lentil and begomovirus diseases of three minor tropical food legumes (hyacinth bean, horse gram, and lima bean). Aspects included are geographic distribution, impact on crop growth and yields, virus characteristics, diagnosis of causal viruses, disease epidemiology, and options for control. Effectiveness of selection and planting with virus-free seed, phytosanitation, manipulation of crop cultural and agronomic practices, control of virus vectors and host plant resistance, and potential of transgenic resistance for legume virus disease control are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, India.
authors.forename: Masarapu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hema
authors.affiliation: Formerly Professor of Virology, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, India.
authors.forename: Pothur
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sreenivasulu
authors.affiliation: National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, IARI, Pusa Campus, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Basavaprabhu L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Patil
authors.affiliation: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, Nigeria.
authors.forename: P Lava
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Formerly Principal Virologist, ICRISAT, Patancheru, Hyderabad, India. Electronic address: dvrreddy7@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Dodla V R
authors.initials: DV
authors.lastname: Reddy
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods*; D000818:Animals; D004199:Disease Vectors; D007887:Fabaceae / Q000821:virology*; D007300:Insect Control; D007313:Insecta / Q000821:virology; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000821:virology*; D010945:Plants, Edible / Q000821:virology*; D011790:Quarantine; D014329:Tropical Climate; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000517:prevention & control*
keywords: Control; Diagnosis; Epidemiology; Tropical food legumes; Virus characteristics; Virus diseases