EVALUATION OF GLOBE ARTICHOKE AND RELATED GERMPLASM FOR RESISTANCE TOARTICHOKE LATENT VIRUS

A total of 280 globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus L.) clones were assess ed for reaction to naturally occurring artichoke latent virus (ALV) in field trials. Also, the reaction of 17 seed progenies of crosses whic h produced ALV-resistant clones in the field, 20 self progenies of par ental genotypes common to these crosses, self progenies of 17 artichok e cultivars, and 7 accessions of C. cardunculus and C. syriaca were ev aluated in the glasshouse following mechanical inoculation with ALV. T he local and systemic presence of ALV, and the relative virus content in infected plants were determined by ELISA. All cultivars and most of the other C. scolymus material tested (clones and seed progenies) pro ved to be highly susceptible to ALV. Ten progenies were less susceptib le to mechanical inoculation as shown by the moment the virus could be detected, and a slow rate of accumulation of viral antigen. Some plan ts in two seed progenies possessed apparently a high resistance as cou ld be concluded from the failure of ALV to spread or to multiply in pl ant. Accessions of C. cardunculus and C. syriaca were also highly susc eptible to ALV. However, an interspecific hybrid C. cardunculus x C. s yriaca presented the highest level of resistance, the plants remained free of local and systemic infection. Ratios of resistant to susceptib le plants in self progenies of resistant plants suggested that this re sistance was dominant.