Susceptible Phase of Chili Pepper Due to Yellow Leaf Curl Begomovirus Infection

One of factors that affect the severity of plant diseases caused by virus is the time of Begomovirus infection. There is a tendency that the younger the plants are infected, the greater the damage caused by the Begomovirus infection will be. This study aimed to reveal the exact time of Begomovirus infection for the purpose of resistance plant selection and to determine the onset of Begomovirus infection which resulted in the most devastating damage to the plant. The study was conducted in a factorial randomized completely block design with two factors. The first factor was 5 chili pepper genotypes and the second factor was the infection at three phases of the plant with no infection as a control treatment. The results showed that the screening for resistant and susceptible Begomovirus infection on pepper genotypes was very effective when it was done during cotyledon phase/two leaf using individual transmission method.  Genotype UNIBC GTS1 was the most susceptible to infection of Begomovirus because it had the highest disease intensity, the fastest incubation period, small plant dry weight and fruit weight per plant. In contrast, genotype IPBC 12 was the most resistant genotypes. It had lower disease intensity and long incubation period. However, despite this resistant characteristic, the weight of fruit per plant of IPBC 12 genotype was not significantly different from the susceptible genotype. Genotype IPBC 14, despite having high disease intensity, could produce the highest fruit weight per plant compared to other genotypes. The infection of Begomovirus on susceptible genotype UNIB C GTS1 at various phases of the plant growth led to the pepper fruit become shorter, lower plant dry weight, smaller numbers of fruits and fruit weight per plant.  While the resistant genotypes IPBC 12 had low dry weight when infected by Begomovirus in the phase of cotyledon.