Major Viruses Infecting Temperate Fruit Crops and Their Impact on the Fruit Industry

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Several plant viruses infecting temperate fruit crops are extremely infectious and have devastating effects on the host trees. They all have a significant effect on yield and yield-related efficiency. Others cause a slew of problems, necessitating a large sum of money to save these infectious diseases from wreaking havoc. Yield and other economic losses are the most visible manifestations of this effect. These viruses cause economic loss to the farmers/producers and consumers by affecting plant growth and reproduction, causing sterility, yield and/or quality reduction, increased susceptibility to other stresses, crop failure, loss of aesthetic value, quarantine, and the need for eradication of the infected plants, thus increasing the cost of control measures as well as detection programs. Since future yield and risks are so unpredictable, losses incurred by any viral disease cannot be calculated explicitly. Experimental evaluation of the losses due to viral diseases is difficult because the infection of safe, controlled plants is rarely possible, and inoculations under vector-proof conditions do not adequately represent what occurs in natural conditions. Viruses are also unusual, and their structures are deceptively simple. However, this simplicity leads to a stronger reliance on the host, and the two have a complicated relationship. This complicates plant-virus management strategies as well as the damage caused by them. Plant virus control systems rely on our knowledge of the virus-vector/host relationship and will remain one of the most difficult tasks faced by plant virologists, growers, and nurserymen in the future.