A mild strain of Papaya ringspot virus - type W (PRSV-W), named PRSV-W-1, has proved to be very effective in the control of the disease in zucchini squash plants under greenhouse and field conditions. The aim of this work was to obtain additional information on the protection mechanism between PRSV-W-1 and a severe homologous strain (PRSV-W-C) in Cucurbita pepo L. cv. Caserta. Protective inoculation with the mild strain was made on the cotyledons and the challenge inoculation with the severe strain was applied on the first true expanded leaf, and vice-versa. Plants were challenged at three, six or nine days later, respectively. Plants infected with either the mild or the severe strain alone served as controls. Evaluations were based on the recovery test and specific RT-PCR to detect the challenge strain from challenge inoculated and newly developed leaves of the test-plants. Symptoms evaluation was made 30 days after the challenge inoculation. Regardless of the site of the protective inoculation it seems there are some infectable sites available for superinfection with the severe strain. When the challenge inoculation was performed three days after the protective inoculation, a systemic superinfection occurred in some plants. All plants became protected against the expression of symptoms induced by the severe strain when the challenge inoculation was made six and nine days after protective inoculation. However, the severe strain was still detected in the inoculated and upper leaves of a few test-plants, eight days after the challenge inoculation. These data showed that competition for viral replication sites plays a role in the protection between strains of PRSV-W.
Cucurbita pepo; Potyvirus; cross protection; preimmunization
