The Beet Leaf Hopper Curly-Top Virus, Found That Flax from the San Joaquin Valley, Calif., Was Infected with Curly Top
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muskmelons have been reported in Arizona, California, Idaho, and Utah. In 1945, N. J. Giddings, a specialist on The Beet Leaf hopper curly-top virus, found that flax from the San Joaquin Valley, Calif., was infected with curly top. Later tests in- dicated the possibility of serious injury /. R. Douglass, William C. Cook to flax during seasons of high infesta- tions. The beet leafhopper is the only THE BEET LEAFHOPPER^ commonly known carrier of curly top, a destruc- called the whitefly in the West, is tive virus disease of sugar beets, beets, slightly more than one-eighth inch beans, tomatoes, spinach, melons, other long. It is gray to greenish yellow\ It crops, ornamental flowering plants and is a sun-loving, dry-climate insect and many weeds. The insect favors arid and often breeds on many species of intro- semiarid localities of the western duced weeds established on nonagri- United States, northern Mexico, and cultural and deteriorated range lands. southwestern Canada. Its breeding It feeds by sucking juices from its host grounds are abandoned and overgrazed plants. Rarely does it become numer- lands on which weed hosts occur. Such ous enough to cause great direct dam- areas are also reservoirs for the virus. age by its feeding. It is important then Curly top has been given many com- only because it carries curly top. mon names—on sugar beets it has been The virus of curly top survives the called California beet blight, western winter in both the beet leafhopper and blight, blight, curly leaf, and curly top ; its winter host plants. The leafhopper on tomatoes, tomato blight, yellow transmits it during feeding. It is carried blight, summer blight, western blight, from the winter hosts to other weed w^estern yellow tomato blight, tomato hosts and cultivated susceptible crops, yellows, and tomato curly top; on principally during the spring move- beans, bean blight. ment. Some of the crops in their seed- How serious it can be is shown in ling stage arc very susceptible to the records for southern Idaho, where disease. Infected plants often die. The g;rowcrs of sugar beets in 1924 aban- percentage of the spring-generation doned 11,442 out of 22,418 acres they leafhoppers carr^âng the virus has planted. In 1934 they abandoned 18,- varied from year to year, with a low of 635 out of 21,389 planted acres. The 4 percent and a high of 80 percent. average yields of the harvested fields Varieties of sugar beets that are re- were 5.51 and 4.88 tons an acre for sistant to curly top have been devel- 1924 and 1934—far below the 16-ton oped. We have no commercial varieties average in years of little leafhopper of tomatoes that are resistant. Serious exposure. Factories were dismantled losses occur during years of leafhopper and moved to other places, only to be outbreaks in parts of California, Colo- dismantled and moved again when it rado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. v/as found that they had been relocated In southern Idaho and some other in areas infested by the beet leafhopper. areas, tomatoes are not grown for com- A leafhopper can pick up the virus mercial use, because the crop is prac- from a diseased plant and transfer it tically a complete loss in years of drastic to a healthy plant in 4 hours. Once a exposure to curly top. leafhopper has become infected with Most varieties of snap beans are sus- the virus of curly top, it remains in- ceptible. Southern Idaho produces ap- fective, but it cannot transmit the virus proximately 80 percent of the national through the eggs to its progeny. requirement of garden seed beans. The Serious losses to cantaloups and area is free from bacterial blight and 544 The Beet Leafhopper 545 other seed-borne bean diseases. During velop typical symptoms of the disease years when large spring movements of and generally grow to maturity. hoppers coincide with the "crookneck," In tomatoes the first reliable symp- or seedling, stage, field after field of the tom is a general drooping, but not wilt- most susceptible varieties of beans in ing, accompanied by yellowing of the southern Idaho have been so seriously young leaves and purpling of the veins. damaged by curly top that it has been The plant is abnormal—often silvery— necessary to plow them under. Losses to in color. The leaves thicken and be- less susceptible varieties have also been come leathery and brittle. The entire high. In the past, serious losses occurred plant turns yellow and usually dies. In in most of the varieties of the field, or seriously diseased plants the blossoms dry, beans. The Idaho Agricultural Ex- may drop and no more fruit is set. periment Station has developed resis- Fruits that are already formed turn yel- tant varieties of Great Northern and lowish red, ripen prematurely, and are pinto beans. stunted and of poor quality. In squash the symptoms are some- THE EARLIEST VISIBLE SYMPTOMS of v/hat similar to those in the other sus- curly top in beets are the clearing of the ceptible commercial crops. If the young tiny veinlets and the inward rolling of seedling is infected by virus-carrying the lower and outer margins of the leaf hopper s as soon as it emerges above youngest leaves. As the disease gets the soil, it may die before its true leaves more severe, the curling and distortion appear. In the older infected plants, of the leaves increase, vein swelling new growth is stunted, internodes are occurs, and. numerous papillae, or shortened, and the leaves may roll up- wartlikc bumps, appear on the under ward at the margins. An upward bend- sides of the leaves. A general stunting ing of the tip of the runner is charac- often ends in the death of the plant in teristic. Blossoms may drop and not the most severe cases. The diseased set fruit, and the fruits already formed leaves are dark, dull-green, thick, crisp, are stunted. There are no distinctive and brittle. The roots show marked color differences by which a diseased symptoms. The disease causes the death plant may be identified. Wilting is not of the lateral rootlets and the beet then characteristic of curly-top infection in sends out a large number of new lateral squash plants. rootlets, which look hairy or woolly. Infected cantaloups show no reliable A cross section of a diseased root often symptoms. Infected seedlings become shows dark concentric rings alternating severely stunted and usually die. In the with light circular areas. A longitudinal older infected plants, new growth is section shows the dark discoloration stunted, internodes are shortened extending lengthwise throughout the tow^ard the end of the runners, and the beet. leaves may become puckered with the In beans the first symptoms are the margins turned down. The flowers be- most pronounced on the trifoliate come dwarfed and often become dry leaves, which become slightly puck- before the petals expand. Yellowing ered, curl downward, turn yellow, and occurs in severe cases. die. They and the primary leaves are Spinach affected by curly top under- thicker than normal and brittle and goes stunting, shows crinkling and break on readily. The infected young curling of the leaves, and acquires a plants soon die. Plants infected later in more leathery texture and, in severe the season may drop their blossoms, cases, yellowing of the leaves. become chlorotic, and die. Affected Considerable variations may occur plants are decidedly dwarfed and have in the symptoms of the infected plants, short internodes, which give them a depending on the strains of the virus. bunchy appearance. Plants infected The length of the incubation period late in the season do not always de- and the severity of the disease that de- 546 Yearbook of Agriculture 1952 velops depend on the age and condition the possibility that new and possibly of the plant, its resistance, virulence of more virulent strains of the virus of the virus, temperature, relative humid- curly top will have to be dealt with. ity, and light intensity. High tempera- Since the beet leafhopper survives ture^ low relative humidity, and high only in a dry climate, it has probably light intensity all increase the severity reached the limits of its economic dis- of the disease and the rate of develop- tribution in North America. The gen- ment. Irrigation does not check the eral climatic condition, rather than its disease. Serious epidemics of curly top host plants, is the limiting factor in re- are dependent on several contributing stricting further geographical distribu- factors—magnitude and time of the tion of this insect, as its summer, win- movement of spring-generation leaf- ter, and spring breeding host plants are hoppers, percentage of leafhoppers found growing abundantly outside of carrying the virus of curly top, size and its economic range. condition of susceptible plants at the In only two instances has the insect time of infection, and weather con- been reported in the Eastern States. ditions. D. M. DeLong found it reproducing The first variety of beets resistant to on purslane sesuvium {Sesuvium por- curly top, U. S. i, was developed by tucastrum) at Miami, Fla., in 1921. the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, In 1936 he and K. J. Kadow collected and Agricultural Engineering and was it from horseradish at Gollinsville, 111. released to growers in 1934. Since then, An occasional outbreak of the insect other resistant varieties have been re- and the curly top disease may be ex- leased. Each is an improvement in pected in areas removed from its nor- resistance and adaptation.