Plant growth and fungal treatment differences
Various plant growth measurements were obtained from the cassava plants in both screening experiments and one of the addi- tional (best performing isolate/strains) experiments. Aboveground measurements (stem length, number of stems, and chlorophyll content) were taken 46 days post-inoculation, i.e., the day before the plants were destroyed for the second sampling time 47– 49 days post inoculation. Stem length was measured from the point of origin of the longest stem on the cutting to the tip of that stem. Leaf chlorophyll content was determined with a SPAD 502 Plus Chlorophyll Meter (Minolta Co., Ltd., Osaka, Japan). The long- est lobule of the most recent fully expanded leaf was used for obtaining the SPAD value, which included an average of three mea- surements along the lamina of the lobule. The root measurements (dry root weight and root length) were taken over three days from 47 days to 49 days post-inoculation because they had to be mea- sured after plants were removed from the pots. On the day of destructive sampling, the roots of each plant were collected by sieving and washed under running tap water and then dried in an oven for 72 h at 50 C to obtain the dry root weight for each plant. The root weight was the entire root mass in the pot (minus the 2 60 mm pieces of root taken to evaluate endophytic colo- nization). The root length was the entire length of a root from where the root attached to the cassava stem cutting to the distal tip of the root (of the two longest roots).