Interplay between drought and plant viruses co-infecting melon plants.

Drought affects crops directly, and indirectly by affecting the activity of insect pests and the transmitted pathogens. Here, we established an experiment with well-watered or water-stressed melon plants, later single infected with either cucumber mosaic virus (CMV: non-persistent), or cucurbit aphid-borne yellow virus (CABYV: persistent), or both CMV and CABYV, and mock-inoculated control. We tested whether i) the relation between CMV and CABYV is additive, and ii) the relationship between water stress and virus infection is antagonistic, i.