Spray inoculation and image analysis-based quantification of powdery mildew disease severity on pea leaves.

Pea () is an important agricultural legume crop, but powdery mildew disease caused by the biotrophic fungus regularly limits its annual yield. Assays to evaluate the efficacy of potential antifungal compounds or resistance genes for disease control require a simple fungal inoculation method that provides control over the initial inoculum concentration and enables uniform inoculum distribution within a leaf and across replicates as well as a method for the quantitative assessment of disease severity. Here, we present an easy spray inoculation method for the uniform distribution of a defined concentration of conidia on the leaves of pea plants and a semi-automated image analysis-based quantification of disease symptoms.

Concepts and considerations for enhancing RNAi efficiency in phytopathogenic fungi for RNAi-based crop protection using nanocarrier-mediated dsRNA delivery systems.

Existing, emerging, and reemerging strains of phytopathogenic fungi pose a significant threat to agricultural productivity globally. This risk is further exacerbated by the lack of resistance source(s) in plants or a breakdown of resistance by pathogens through co-evolution. In recent years, attenuation of essential pathogen gene(s) double-stranded (ds) RNA-mediated RNA interference (RNAi) in host plants, a phenomenon known as host-induced gene silencing, has gained significant attention as a way to combat pathogen attack.