Abstract

Crop and weed plants were compared as hosts for Longidorus elongatus and the viruses it transmits, raspberry ringspot (RRV) and tomato black ring (TBRV). For the nematode, strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa), grasses and clovers were the most favourable hosts but most of the crop plants were poor or non-hosts. All the weeds except Agropyron repens supported significantly greater populations of L. elongatus than the fallow controls.
RRV and/or TBRV were detected in most of the experimental plant species during, or after, the 15-wk exposure to viruliferous nematodes. The frequency of infection was generally highest amongst the weeds and was usually but not always related to suitability as a host for the nematode vector. The one is therefore not necessarily an index of the other.
Feeding by L. elongatus caused distortion or swelling of the sub terminal portion of a few roots in many of the plant species tested. On a favourable host at least 12 eggs were produced by a female.