Location: Vegetable Research
Project Number: 6080-22000-032-015-R
Project Type: Reimbursable Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2023
End Date: Feb 21, 2024
Objective:
1. To evaluate eggplant plants and wild tomato as an alternative rootstock for grafted tomatoes for greenhouse tomato production to prevent ToBRFV transmission through hydroponic nutrient irrigation system.
2. To develop thermal and chemotherapy methods that are useful for effective seed treatment to deactivate ToBRFV on contaminated tomato seeds.
3. To evaluate cold plasma ozone treatment for greenhouse disinfection against ToBRFV contamination in recirculating irrigation water.
4. To implement integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for ToBRFV developed above and continue to educate tomato growers in the U.S. through virtual meetings, workshops and other extension publications.
Approach:
Objective 1, To evaluate eggplant and wild tomato as an alternative rootstock for tomato grafting in greenhouse production to prevent ToBRFV transmission through hydroponic nutrient irrigation system. As a tobamovirus, ToBRFV is stable and can survive for a long time in recirculating nutrient irrigation water. In host range studies, eggplant is not a host for ToBRFV. Using eggplant, a close relative to tomato as a rootstock, would effectively break the disease cycle in ToBRFV spreading to other parts of a greenhouse facility. We will compare ToBRFV re-infection rate to tomato plants that were grafted onto an eggplant or a tomato-based rootstock. Using a drip system to introduce serial 10-fold dilutions of an inoculum containing ToBRFV with daily irrigation, observation will be conducted weekly after inoculation for 2-3 months for any sign of disease symptoms on the test plants. Confirmation for the presence of the virus will be performed using an appropriate ToBRFV test.
