and cultured on potato dextrose agar (PDA: Difco,
Detroit, USA). Spores were harvested from 2-weekold
PDA cultures of B. cinerea grown at 25 ◦C. An
amount of 5ml of sterile water, containing 0.05%
(v/v) Triton X-100, was added to a petri plate culture,
the spores were gently dislodged from the surface
with a sterile glass rod, and suspensions were
filtered through three layers of cheesecloth to remove
mycelial fragments. The suspensions were diluted with
sterile water to an absorbance of 0.25 at 425 nm
as determined by a spectrophotometer. This density
contained 1.2×106 conidia/ml. Further dilutions with
sterilewater were made to obtain the desired spore concentrations