Pathogenic diversity of rice yellow mottle virus isolates from western Burkina Faso (2015-2021): phenotypic evaluation data

The rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV) constitutes a major threat to the actual development of rice cultivation in Africa. As climate change and agricultural intensification increase the risk of epidemics, there is an urgent need to understand the spatio-temporal dynamics of RYMV at local scale. This dataset provides information on the pathogenicity of RYMV isolates collected in western Burkina Faso between 2015 and 2021. Two experiments were conducted in controlled greenhouse conditions (IRD Montpellier, France, 2021-2022), to characterize the phenotype of viral isolates from the major viral genetic groups identified in western Burkina Faso, on a set of rice cultivars. The first experiment aimed to assess the symptom severity and intra-plant viral accumulation of four viral isolates, each representing one identified genetic group, on three rice cultivars from western Burkina Faso and 2 reference cultivars. Three successive replications were performed. The second experiment aimed to test the pathogenicity of 13 viral isolates (including those used in the first experiment), from the genetic groups identified in western Burkina Faso on one susceptible rice cultivar. The second experiment was all performed at the same time. For both experiments, induced symptoms (estimated with a specific severity scale), as well as intra-plant viral accumulation (estimated though quantitative PCR), were evaluated for each viral isolate. This experimental work evidenced no differences between the three rice cultivars cultivated in Burkina Faso, and no statistical effect of RYMV genetic group on symptom expression and viral load. We found however that RYMV isolates differed from each other and that the three isolates resulting in strongest symptoms and highest viral loads are from the same lineage (S1bzn). For more details, refer to the main documentation file "Data_Experimental_Methodology.pdf".