Emerging plant viruses in cotton

Abstract

Plants usually suffer from parasitic and non parasitic diseases in the world. One of the major groups that cause infections in plants belong to viruses, which is obligate parasite and replicate only in living cells. They are generally insect or seed transmitted and changes associated with global warming may affect both their incidence and severity. New virus diseases that are threatening the world’s agricultural production are called “emerging diseases” which are commonly detected on different crop plants. Recent emerging viruses have RNA or DNA genome and belong to Potyviridae, Bunyaviridae, Geminiviridae, Closteroviridae, Betaflexiviridae and Secoviridae families. Plant virus diseases, like diseases caused by other pathogens, appear to be proliferating at ever increasing rates. Scientific and popular media abound with terms such as new, emerging, re-emerging and threatening plant diseases. In the present paper, the emerging viral diseases reported in cotton were discussed in detail.