2. Pathogen inoculation and GA3 treatment Stems of the rice plants showing symptoms of elongation was caused by GA3 secreted from Fusarium moniliforme or by the disease, seedlings were transferred to the field after measurement of the length. The number of dead seedlings was counted every day. The basal nodes of the dead seedlings were examined under microscope for the fungus.
3. Data analysis
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test were conducted using DPS software (Tang and Feng, 1997). Least significant differences for comparison of means were computed at P < 0.05.