LAUSR

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L, family Cucurbitaceae) is a major vegetable crop widely cultivated throughout India. Bitter gourd pods are consumed for their nutritional and medicinal value. In 2016, nearly 15% of plants showed virus-like symptoms in a 0.6 ha bitter gourd farm at the Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Symptomatic plants were stunted with necrosis of growing tips and yellowing and downward cupping of leaves that became thick and leathery in appearance. Since these symptoms were like those produced by orthotospoviruses in vegetable crops (Kunkalikar et al., 2011), leaves from five symptomatic and five non-symptomatic plants were initially tested by indirect ELISA using polyclonal antibodies raised against Peanut bud necrosis virus (PBNV; Genus: Orthotospovirus; Family: Tospoviridae). These antibodies were obtained from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Hyderabad, India. Only samples from symptomatic plants gave pos...