Groundnut rosette virus

Groundnut rosette virus is a virus complex that infects peanut, Arachis hypogaea, across Sub-Saharan Africa and is transmitted between plants by the groundnut aphid, Aphis craccivora. Infected plants develop a bushy, stunted and distorted appearance with yellowed or mottled foliage, and young plants may fail to produce nuts at all; three symptom variants are recognized, a chlorotic rosette found across the region, a mosaic rosette common in East and Central Africa, and a green rosette known from West Africa and Uganda. The disease has caused severe historical losses, infecting eighty to ninety percent of plants in the Belgian Congo in 1939, and can spread rapidly once aphids are established, with one Tanzanian study recording sixty five percent of plants affected within three weeks of initial detection.