title: Control of sweet potato virus diseases.
abstract: Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is ranked seventh in global food crop production and is the third most important root crop after potato and cassava. Sweet potatoes are vegetative propagated from vines, root slips (sprouts), or tubers. Therefore, virus diseases can be a major constrain, reducing yields markedly, often more than 50%. The main viruses worldwide are Sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) and Sweet potato chlorotic stunt virus (SPCSV). Effects on yields by SPFMV or SPCSV alone are minor, or but in complex infection by the two or other viruses yield losses of 50%. The orthodox way of controlling viruses in vegetative propagated crops is by supplying the growers with virus-tested planting material. High-yielding plants are tested for freedom of viruses by PCR, serology, and grafting to sweet potato virus indicator plants. After this, meristem tips are taken from those plants that reacted negative. The meristems were grown into plants which were kept under insect-proof conditions and away from other sweet potato material for distribution to farmers after another cycle of reproduction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Pathology, Agricultural Research Organization, Bet Dagan, Israel. Electronic address: gad-talma@barak.net.il.
authors.forename: Gad
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Loebenstein
mesh_terms: D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000276:immunology / Q000469:parasitology / Q000821:virology*; D005856:Germ-Free Life; D007300:Insect Control / Q000379:methods; D027723:Ipomoea batatas / Q000276:immunology / Q000469:parasitology / Q000821:virology*; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000821:virology*; D010942:Plant Viruses / Q000254:growth & development*
keywords: Bemisia tabaci; Diagnosis of sweet potato viruses; Sweet potato chlorotic stunt virus; Sweet potato feathery mottle virus; Sweet potato virus disease; Transgenic approaches for control; Virus-tested propagation material