respectively, as follows. Briefly, 20
watermelon plants (‘Crimson Sweet’) were grown in 15-liter
plastic pots and at anthesis, 30 to 40 attached female blossoms
were pollinated and simultaneously inoculated by gently rubbing
their ovaries with a cotton swab saturated with a cell suspension
with ≈1 × 106 AAC00-1 CFU/ml. Blossoms were enclosed in
plastic bags for 24 h and fruits were allowed to develop for
30 days after pollination. Fruits were harvested and stored at 4°C
until seed extraction. For seed extraction, fruits were surface
sterilized with either 70% ethanol or 0.5% NaOCl and seeds were
manually extracted and air-dried at 25°C on paper towels. Seeds
from different fruits that were treated similarly were pooled and
stored at 4°C until they were used