Viruses Infecting Bulbous Ornamental Plants and Their Diagnosis and Management

Floriculture flourished as an important fast-emerging sector of horticulture in the last few decades and is being viewed as a high growth industry in the world. Rapid urbanization, increased income levels, changes in lifestyles and social values resulted in increase in domestic and world market for flower crops significantly. Flower crops are propagated using various seed materials and modern methods, and the crops like gladiolus, tuberose and lily are mainly propagated by bulbs. Viruses are the major limiting factor and a major concern in the production of bulbous ornamentals. Bulbs, the propagating material usually harbour many viruses and act as the primary source of inoculum to cause diseases in the main crop. The viruses present in the bulbs infect the main crop, spread to healthy plants secondarily through various sap feeding insect vectors, such as aphids. Among the plant viruses, the single stranded RNA genome viruses like CMV, BYMV, TuMMoV, LSV, LMoV, TBV, TNV, TRV are considered as major constraints of bulbous ornamental flower production of the bulbous flower crops. Various methods such as electron microscopy, ELISA and PCR based technologies have been successfully developed and are being employed in the diagnosis and detection of the important viruses infecting bulbous ornamental crops. Management of these economically important viruses is successful when integration of multiple methods such as use of virus free certified planting materials and timely management of vectors in the field. In this chapter, we described the symptoms, transmission, characterization, diagnosis, and the management aspects of various taxonomic groups of viruses infecting above mentioned ornamentals.