Recently the authors of this work were contacted by the authors of the paper "Natural Infection of Soybean with Soybean vein necrosis-associated virus Grown under Greenhouse Conditions: An Accidental Observation" (Hajimorad, M. R., Halter, M. C., and Mengistu, A. 2015. Natural infection of soybean with Soybean vein necrosis-associated virus grown under greenhouse conditions: An accidental observation. Plant Health Progress doi:10.1094/PHP-BR-15-0025) which was cited in this publication on pages 14 and 15 of the PDF.

Concern was raised that the results of that work were not accurately reported in this publication. Here is the excerpt from our publication:

"However, three soybean varieties were grown in the same greenhouse and only two of the varieties were infected with SVNV. If viruliferous thrips were the source of SVNV inoculum, it would be presumed that all three varieties would have been infected, as genetic resistance toward SVNV is not known. In addition, distribution of viral symptoms should have been fairly uniform in this environment, if thrips were the source of inoculum."

The authors of the publication "Natural Infection of Soybean with Soybean vein necrosis-associated virus Grown under Greenhouse Conditions: An Accidental Observation" indicated that they thought their data suggest that all three soybean varieties were positive if from both PCR and ELISA were combined. Here is the breakdown of SVNV-positive finds compared to the number of samples tested for each method:

ELISA Positive finds

LS98-0358 = 3/4
Pharaoh = 1/2
DT97-4290 = 0/4

RT-PCR Positive Finds

LS98-0358 = 3/4
Pharaoh = 0/2
DT97-4290 = 1/4

Thus for any one test there was only two of the three varieties that tested positive. Obviously, interpretation of results can vary among scientists. And this is scientifically acceptable. The authors of the publication "Seed Transmission of Soybean vein necrosis virus: The First Tospovirus Implicated in Seed Transmission" believe that because the ELISA results and PCR results do not complement each other, then considering all cultivars positive might not be accurate. In any one test only two of the three cultivars tested were positive, hence the statement in our publication. However, we encourage the reader to make their own judgment.

Concern was also raised that we failed to cite the following publication:

Hajimorad MR, Halter MC, Wang Y, Staton ME, Hershman DE (2015) Evaluation of Seed Transmissibility of Soybean Vein Necrosis-Associated Virus in Two Soybean Cultivars Grown Under Field Conditions. J Plant Pathol Microb 6: 278. doi:10.4172/2157-7471.1000278

Failure to cite this publication was linked to the fact that our manuscript was submitted for review one day prior to publication of the JPPM article. A follow-up search was not conducted once our manuscript was accepted resulting in simply missing the fact that this article had been published due to this timing issue.