Fig 5. Pathogenicity assays on rice leaves.

(A) Spray inoculation with 4-week-old rice seedlings. Rice leaves (O. sativa cv. CO-39) were inoculated with conidia at a concentration of 5×10⁴ conidia ml⁻¹. Representative leaves were photographed 6 days post-inoculation. The experiments were repeated at least three times with triple replications that yielded similar results. (B) Disease severity of each strain was assessed from the percentage of diseased leaf area as described by Fang and Dean (2000). ANOVA analysis was performed after percentages were arcsine transformed. However, the original percentages were used for presentations. Error bars represent SD of the original percentages. Asterisks in each data column indicate significant differences at p = 0.05. (C) Drop inoculation with 20 μl serial dilutions of conidia suspension on intact and wounded rice leaf segments. Representative leaves were photographed 6 days post-inoculation.