THE OCCURRENCE OF BEET PSEUDO-YELLOWS VIRUS IN ENGLAND

Beet pseudo‐yellows virus (BPYV) has been identified in England for the first titne, in lettuce, following transmission by the greenhouse whitefly (Trialeurodes vaporariorum) to healthy plants. Infected plants had leaves with severe interveinal chlorosis and slight downward curling, and were gerterally smaller than healthy plants. Indirect ELISAs with an antiserum raised against the Californian isolate of BPYV were positive with extracts produced from infected plants. Infected but not healthy plants contained a single species of double‐stranded RNA of about 7.5 × lO6Da, a size similar to that found with beet yellows virus, the type member of the closterovirus group. Copyright © 1990, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved