[6] In maize, the infection occurs first in the youngest leaves with symptoms such as irregular, light or dark green mosaic coloring developing along the veins.

The virus can result in severe yield loss of the infected host and the disease eventually leads to necrosis.

[7] The leading management tool has been to transform viral genes into maize plants, but transgenic plants have increasingly raised concerns for their potential negative ecological effects, such as reversal of silencing by viral suppressors, complementation, synergy, and gene flow among closely related organisms.

[10] The family Potyviridae, which includes approximately 200 species of economically important plant viruses, causes significant losses in agricultural, pasture, horticultural and ornamental crops.

In the mid-1920s, epidemics of the disease nearly collapsed the sugarcane industry in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and southern United States.