Applications and Limitations of Virus Free Plants- Virus elimination generally improves the yield by 20-90% over infected controls. However, elimination of viruses may increase the susceptibility of plants to other more severe viruses, since the presence of one virus confers resistance to infection by other related viruses (virus cross protection).

In addition, virus free plants so obtained may rapidly become infected by the same virus once they are taken to the field. As a result, virus free plants have been developed and used in breeding programmes and for germplasm exchange, but they themselves are of little commercial interest.