Floral bud distortion in soybean and incidence in Central India

Abstract

We describe a peculiar and often harmful budding disorder in soybean, leading to huge yield loss in India. To determine the prevalence of floral distortion in soybean, an extensive random roving survey was undertaken in the soybean-growing regions of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and the adjoining part of Karnataka states during two successive seasons of kharif (monsoon-planted) crops -Oct 2010 and Sept 2011. The average rate of the disorder ranged from 8.0% to 14.6% and severity from 2.0 to 90.0% during 2010 and 2011, respectively. Affected plants were found to have either no or deformed pods and distorted flowers, and they remained green after maturity. All the soybean varieties grown in the surveyed region (i.e. JS 335, JS 93-05, JS 73-23, JS 95-60, AMS-MB-5-19, CO-2, Bragg, JS 10-44, Samrat) were affected by the disorder. The PCR-based diagnosis revealed the absence of phytoplasma in symptomatic soybean samples.

Transcriptomic signature reveals mechanism of flower bud distortion in witches’-broom disease of soybean (Glycine max)

“…Productivity of soybean is adversely affected by various biotic and abiotic stresses like salinity, pathogens, heat, drought, heat, soil heavy metals and compaction [5]. Among the biotic stresses, phytoplasma and viruses are major impediments causing productivity loss from 2 to 90% [6]. According to the earlier reports, several biotic factors have been identified in the host leading to reduced pollen vigour [7], seed mass variants [8], floral abnormalities, sepal hypertrophy, virescence, phyllody, aborted reproductive organs [9], enhanced vegetative growth [10], premature flower abortion [11], etc.…”