The Relative Importance of Infected Soybean Seeds and Bean Leaf Beetles as Inoculum Sources for Bean Pod Mottle Virus.

Bean pod mottle virus (BPMV) was first found in the southern USA in the late 1940s (Zaumeyer and Thomas, 1948) and is now widespread in soybean producing states. Surveys in Arkansas, Kentucky and North Carolina showed the disease to occur in 100, 66 and 30% of fields, respectively (Walters, 1970; Ross and Butler, 1985; Ghabrial et al., 1990) at incidences ranging from 1 to 100% (Walters, 1970; Pitre et al., 1979; Mueller and Haddox, 1980). The occurrence of BPMV in soybeans has increased dramatically in northern soybean production areas of the USA since the late 1990\u27s. Producers of food grade soybeans first drew attention to the problem as they began to experience increased problems with seed discoloration. Since 1999, seed discoloration has also become an economic issue in marketing conventional soybeans both as a seed and as a commodity