Flowering Delay in Flue-cured Tobacco Infected with Meloidogyne Species.

Some forage grasses such as Great Basin wild ryegrass and Nordan standard crested wheatgrass are economically important because of their adaptation to grazing and environmental stress. These tests show that these forage grasses are hosts of M. chitwoodi. As reported for other Meloidogyne species (7), infection by M. chitwoodi may increase host sensitivity to drought by obliterating, compressing, or interrupting the host vascular system. The frequency of resistant plants within the species tested suggests, however, that it should be possible to obtain resistant germplasm of most of the grasses studied. Meloidogyne chitwoodi appears to be widespread in the Pacific northwest on several economically important crops, but no attempt has yet been made to determine the incidence of this nematode on native plants. Infested irrigation and run off water may be involved in the dissemination of this nematode in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington where canal and river water is usually reused (5).