2. Materials and methods
2.1. Fungal isolation and inoculum preparation
The crown rot fungi L. theobromae and C. musae were isolated from infected banana fruits of cv. Robusta and their identity confirmed based on the colony morphology and spore characters according to Punithalingam (1976) and Sutton and Waterson (1970), respectively. The single spore culture of these fungi were maintained on PDA (Potato Dextrose Agar) media at 4 C. Inoculum was prepared by using the conidia of two-week old cultures of these fungi. The conidia were dislodged from the surface of the media by flooding with sterile distilled water and gentle rubbing with a sterile glass rod. The suspensions were filtered through cotton wool to remove mycelial fragments and adjusted to 105 conidia/mL with a haemocytometer. Following, all three conidial suspensions were mixed prior to use to get a cocktail of spore suspension. This spore suspension was used for inoculation of banana hands in all the experiments (Win et al., 2007).