Figure 1. Tomato fruit ripening enhances both the development and severity of disease.

A) The disease pattern was assessed by disease incidence (% total fruit). B) Disease severity by the lesion diameter (cm). Tomato fruits of MG, BK, PK and RR were inoculated with either 5 µL of inoculum containing 800 conidia µl⁻¹ or 5 µL of water. Fruits were quantified each day post-inoculation (DPI) for incidence of disease development and the size disease lesion. Values show the mean±SE. The data were pooled from three independent experiments, with a total of 45 tomato fruit per treatment. Significant differences among fruit of different ripening stage were determined by Student’s t-test using SPSS 13.0 software and indicated by different letters (at P<0.05)).