Effect of spinach mosaic virus, root-knot and stunt nematodes on growth of sugar beet

Abstract

In experimental plots of sugar-beet (Beta vulgaris saccharifera L.) many of the plants were infected with spinach mosaic virus. Some of the infected plants were severely damaged and others were not. The roots of the most severely damaged plants contained egg masses of the root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid et White) Chitwood, and the surrounding soil was infested with the stunt nematode, Tylenchorhynchus brassicae Siddiqi. There have been several reports of interactions between nematodes and viruses (Schlosser, 1962; Bird, 1969; Weischer 1969, 1975; Swamp and Goswami, 1969; Fritzsche, 1970; Khurana et al., 1970; Goswami et al., 1971, 1974; Goswami and Raychaudhuri, 1973; Goswami and Chenulu, 1974; Mayee et al., 1974; Mahmood et al., 1974; Naqvi and Alam, 1975) and it was therefore thought useful to investigate possible interactions between the nematodes and virus affecting sugar-beet in the experiment described here.