Flame chlorosis - a new disease of spring cereals
It was reported at the 6th International Congress of Plant Pathology in Montreal that a new and unusual disease affects spring cereals in the province of Manitoba, CA. Flame chlorosis, as the disease was named, is a soil-transmitted disease which is possibly vectored by Pythium sp. and was first detected in 1985. Since its first detection the disease has spread to several previously uninfected regions in Manitoba. Its symptoms of variegated chlorosis appear as early as the one-leaf stage. Mitochondria and chloroplasts of affected cells are hypertrophied and contain extensive proliferation of fibril-containing vesicles that form within the organellar envelope. Flame chlorosis-specific double stranded RNAs (dsRNA) occur in diseased tissues, but virion particles were never observed. Sequence analysis showed that the flame chlorosis RNA is not related to nucleic acid sequences of currently known plant virus groups and viroids.
Infected plants do not develop viable heads and yield losses can be in heavily infected fields as high as the percentage of infected plants.
Sources
Haber, S.; Chong, J. (1993) Flame chlorosis: A novel, soil-transmitted, viruslike disease of spring cereals.
Presentation at the 6th International Congress of Plant Pathology, Montreal, CA, 1993-07/08-27/06.