The race for rugose resistance

摘要

As the world continues their battle with COVID-19, vegetable researchers and seed providers find themselves racing to develop resistance against a different pathogen.First identified in Israel in 2014, the tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV, a.k.a. the rugose) is one of the most recent members of the tobamovirus genus to make headlines. Over the past several years, the virus has been reported in Mexico and the United States, as well as multiple countries in the EU including Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. According to the EPPO Global Database, Belgium reported its first case earlier this year in 2021, and China in 2019."Characteristics of tobamoviruses are that they tend to be very persistent in the environment, they are highly transmissible and easily spread mechanically, and there are very virulent strains that can be damaging to host crops," said Cara McCreary, greenhouse vegetable IPM specialist at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), during a webinar held inApril 2020.