Effect of Seedborne Potato virus Y on Performance of Russet Burbank, Russet Norkotah, and Shepody Potato.

Potato virus Y (PVY) is one of the most important of the potato viruses, but little is known about the impact on yield of seedborne infection levels below 100%. Blending infected and healthy seed from different seed lots introduces the variable of performance differences between the seed lots, which may obscure the effect of virus alone. Seed lots containing various levels of seedborne PVY (0, 2, 10, 20, and 50% incidence of infected tubers) were created by combining in different proportions seed pieces from healthy and infected tubers from the same seed source.