First Annual Conference Cost Action FA1204 ROOTOPOWER Workshop, Spain, 1 - 04 October 2013, vol.1, no.1, pp.18
Grafted watermelon production on different gourd rootstocks has become widespread in
major watermelon production areas of Turkey. Zuccini Yellow Mosaic Virus (ZYMV) is one
of the most damaging virus diseases in cucurbitaceous plants. Seed-transmission of ZYMV in
gourd makes it more remarkable virus disease. Therefore ZYMV resistance sources should be
added to rootstock breeding programs in gourd. In this paper we aimed to screen our gourd
genotypes for ZYMV. We screened our gourd germplasm included 340 accessions for major
virus diseases infections. The results showed that 188 genotypes (55%) were found to be
infected by ZYMV, 71 genotypes (21%) by Watermelon Mosaic Virus (WMV) 40 genotype
(12%) by Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV) single or mix infection and the rest was virus-free.
Then seeds were collected from ZYMV infected plants. Seeds were sown and seedlings were
tested serologically and RT-PCR techniques for ZYMV, WMV and CMV. We observed that
ZYMV was transmitted by seeds in 3.19 % of the infected genotypes As a result of the
observations; we have convinced that some of the gourd lines should be tolerant against to
ZYMV