Potential Use of Insecticides and Mineral Oils for the Control of Transmission of Major Aphid-Transmitted Potato Viruses

Viruses occurring in Serbia and other countries in the region are a huge problem constrainingseed potato production. At lower altitudes, in lowland and hilly regions, wheretable potato production is widely distributed, more than 50% of healthy plants becomeinfected with potato virus Y during one growing season. Under these conditions, seed potatoproduction is hindered due to a high infection pressure of potato virus Y which spreads farmore rapidly compared to leaf roll virus, virus S and other viruses hosted by this plant species.This study tended to clarify a frequent dilemma regarding the use of insecticides in preventingthe infection of healthy plants with potato virus Y and leaf roll virus, given the oraland written recommendations from pesticide manufacturers, agronomists and scientistsin the field of crop protection arising from a logical conclusion that aphid vector controlresults in virus transmission control.The present findings, which are in agreement with reports of authors from other countries,show that the use of insecticides is ineffective in preventing potato virus Y which isnonpersistently transmitted by aphids from an external source of infection.However, insecticides can exhibit efficacy in preventing potato virus Y transmissionfrom infected plants to healthy plants within a crop, which can have an overall positiveeffect only if seed potato is grown in areas that have no external source of infection.The present results and those of other authors show that insecticides are effective inpreventing the infection of healthy plants with persistently transmitted leaf roll virus.Mineral oils provide effective control of potato virus Y by preventing the infection ofpotato plants with the virus. They can be combined with other management practices toprotect seed potato crops against the virus.Given the fact that the initial first-year infection of healthy potato plants with virus Y inrelation to leaf roll virus is approximately 10-20:1 under conditions in Serbia, and that the useof insecticides fails to ensure protection against PVY, this practice cannot have any positiveeffect on virus control under high infection pressure conditions.