''Zucchini yellow mosaic virus'' (ZYMV) is an aphid-borne

potyvirus ''Potyvirus'' is a genus of positive-strand RNA viruses in the family ''Potyviridae''. Plants serve as natural hosts. The genus is named after member virus ''potato virus Y''. Potyviruses account for about thirty percent of the currently known ...

, regarded as a major pathogen of

cucurbits The Cucurbitaceae, also called cucurbits or the gourd family, are a plant family consisting of about 965 species in around 95 genera, of which the most important to humans are: *''Cucurbita'' – squash, pumpkin, zucchini, some gourds *''Lagena ...

in most regions of the world where these crops are cultivated. ZYMV affects all cucurbits including

pumpkins A pumpkin is a vernacular term for mature winter squash of species and varieties in the genus ''Cucurbita'' that has culinary and cultural significance but no agreed upon botanical or scientific meaning. The term ''pumpkin'' is sometimes use ...

squash Squash may refer to: Sports * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling * Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...

es,

vegetable marrow A marrow is a fruit used as a vegetable, the mature fruit of certain ''Cucurbita pepo'' cultivars. The immature fruit of the same or similar cultivars is called ''courgette'' (in Britain, Iran, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Singapore, Malay ...

s, courgettes,

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a "pepo". The ...

watermelons Watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a flowering plant species of the Cucurbitaceae family and the name of its edible fruit. A scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, it is a highly cultivated fruit worldwide, with more than 1,000 varieti ...

cucumbers Cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the Cucurbitaceae family that bears usually cylindrical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.gherkins A pickled cucumber (commonly known as a pickle in the United States and Canada and a gherkin in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand) is a usually small or miniature cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar, or ...

and various

gourds Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly ''Cucurbita'' and ''Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earli ...

especially

zucchini The zucchini (; plural: zucchini or zucchinis), courgette (; plural: courgettes) or baby marrow (''Cucurbita pepo'') is a summer squash, a vining herbaceous plant whose fruit are harvested when their immature seeds and epicarp (rind) are stil ...

s. The effects are severe leaf mosaic, yellowing and eventually "shoestring" symptoms in the leaves. The fruits are stunted, twisted and deformed by raised protuberances, which reduces yield and makes them unmarketable in some cultures. In cultivated crops plants cease producing marketable fruits within 1–2 weeks of infection and serious financial losses can occur, particularly in courgette and marrow crops.

Control

The disease may be introduced in infected seed, so sourcing clean seed can help prevent the disease. Control is largely dependent on using

insecticides Insecticides are substances used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and by consumers. Insecticides are claimed to b ...

to control the aphid vectors. A form of "inoculation" or cross protection may also be used where seedlings are inoculated with a non-virulent strain of the virus (ZYMV-WK); this prevents infection with the severe strain. A biotech yellow crookneck squash has been developed to resist zucchini yellow mosaic virus (and watermelon mosaic virus (WMV)). This contains the coat protein genes of the viruses. In 2009, relatively small amounts of this were grown commercially in the US. It is similar to the

watermelon mosaic virus ''Watermelon mosaic virus'' (WMV) also known as Marrow mosaic virus (Raychaudhuri and Varma, 1975; Varma, 1988), Melon mosaic virus (Iwaki et al., 1984; Komuro, 1962), and until recently Watermelon mosaic virus type 2 (WMV-2), is a plant pathogen ...

Yellow Mosaic Virus on yellow squash leaf

References

External links

Management of Virus Diseases by Classical and Engineered Protection
{{Taxonbar, from=Q8074975 Viral plant pathogens and diseases Potyviruses