Combined Infection with Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus and Pythium Species Causes Extensive Collapse in Cucumber Plants

Abstract

In the last decade, the phenomenon of late-wilting has increased in cucumber greenhouses during Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) epidemics. Because the wilting appears in defined patches accompanied by root rot, it was hypothesized that the phenomenon is caused by coinfection of soilborne pathogens and CGMMV. A field survey showed that 69% of the collapsed plants were infected with both Pythium spp. and CGMMV, whereas only 20 and 6.6% were singly infected with Pythium spp. or CGMMV, respectively. Artificial inoculations in controlled-environmental growth chambers and glasshouse experiments showed that coinfection with Pythium spinosum and CGMMV leads to a strong synergistic wilting effect and reduces growth parameters. The synergy values of the wilting effect were not influenced by the time interval between P. spinosum and CGMMV infection. However, dry mass synergy values were decreased with longer intervals between infections. The results obtained in this study support the complexity of the wilting phenomenon described in commercial cucumber grown in protected structures during infection of Pythium spp. on the background of a vast CGMMV epidemic. They encourage a wider perspective of the complexity of agricultural diseases to apply the most suitable disease management.