Biological Characterization of Urmia Melon Virus, Incidence of the Virus in few Provinces of Iran and Assessment of Local and Commercial Summer Squashes and Cucumbers's Response to Virus

Ourmia melon virus (OuMV) is the causal agent of mosaic disease on melon in West-Azerbaijan province and probably in some other parts of Iran. Symptomatic and non-symptomatic samples of cultivated and non-cultivated hosts were collected from most cucurbit-planting parts of the province and surveyed using common serological methods namely: Indirect-ELISA, Direct-ELISA and Lateral flow. Some squash, cucumber, cantaloupe and melon samples were collected from the Experimental Fields of the College of Agriculture Karaj, while several samples were obtained from Shiraz regions to be tested upon. Distribution of OuMV during 2006-2008 and in western Azerbaijan province was surveyed whith squash, cucumber, melon, watermelon, cantaloupe, eggplant, tomato, carrot and bean detected as cultivated hosts while black binweed (Convolvulus sp.), red root pigweed (Amaranhtus retroflexus L.) and prickly lettuce (Lactuca scariola L.) as non-cultivated hosts. The virus was transmitted from the infected plants to healthy ones just by contact while other methods of transmission failed. Local varieties of cucumber and squash were observed to be more sensitive to OuMV than the commercial ones, as found out through resistance/tolerance assay. Occurance of the virus in other provinces of Iran showed its prevalence in other parts of the country too.