Project Number: 5305-22000-013-01
Project Type: Trust

Start Date: Apr 01, 2010
End Date: Sep 30, 2013

Objective:
The goal of this project is to confirm reliability of a newly developed detection method; attempt development of a rapid serological test for tombusviruses causing dieback disease in lettuce (long-term and will depend in part on success of molecular test); determine if it will be possible to monitor levels of tombusviruses in soil using commercial soil nucleic acid testing kits; and develop more cost-effective and reliable methods for greenhouse-based testing for tombusvirus resistance in lettuce.

Approach:
Lettuce will be sampled from a diverse array of dieback infested fields from throughout the Salinas Valley and other regions; we will determine if our new molecular detection method can confirm infection more reliably and timely than previous methods. We will test commercial kits for extracting nucleic acid from soils to determine if it is possible to A) detect TBSV and LNSV from soils, and B) quantify levels from different soils and determine correlation with disease incidence in the fields (multi-year objective). Finally, we plan to test a new method for rapid greenhouse pre-screening of lettuce cultivars/lines for tombusvirus resistance.