A Distinct Strain of <i>Cowpea mild mottle virus</i> Infecting Soybean in India

Abstract

Abstract Soybean crops showing systemic mottling, mosaic and leaf deformation were observed at high disease incidences (25.1–71.0%) in the kharif season of 2011 and 2012 in the experimental farm of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute ( IARI ), New Delhi. Symptomatic soybean leaves contained flexuous particles (650 × 12 nm), suggesting an infection by a C arlavirus . The causal virus was characterized as a strain of C owpea mild mottle virus ( CPMMV ) on the basis of mechanical inoculation, whitefly transmission, seed transmission and sequencing of the viral genome. This is the first report of natural infection by a distinct strain of CPMMV in soybean in India.