The A. carbonarius 5010 reference strain was used in this study.
The strain was kindly provided by Prof. Tsitsigiannis form the Lab.
of Phytopathology of the Agricultural University of Athens and was
stored at 80 C in the culture collection of the Department of Food
Science and Human Nutrition of the same University. The strainwas
grown on the surface of Malt Extract Agar Petri dishes for 7 days at
25 C and conidia were collected in an appropriate volume (9 ml) of
washing water (0.9% NaCl w/v, 0.2% v/v Tween 80). Conidia
enumeration was performed using a Neubauer Chamber and inoculums
were prepared as logarithmic concentrations (105 to 101
conidia/ml) by serial diluting the initial suspension