Figure 11

Population size of differentially marked cells of D. solani WT and phage-resistant mutants in potato tubers after co-inoculation or single inoculation into tubers. Potato tubers were inoculated either with fluorescently labelled D. solani IPO 2222 WT, fluorescently labelled individual phage-resistant D. solani Tn5 mutants or co-inoculated with WT strain and individual Tn5 mutant. In the first experiment, a GFP-tagged D. solani IPO 2222 WT and DsRed-tagged phage resistant D. solani mutants were used. In contrast, DsRed-tagged IPO 2222 WT and GFP-tagged phage resistant D. solani mutants were applied in the second experiment. Inoculated tubers were kept under conditions that promote rotting (28º and 80–90% relative humidity). Three days (72 h) post inoculation tubers were sampled and analyzed for the presence of fluorescently tagged bacteria using pour plating. The GFP and DsRed positive colonies were counted. The experiment was replicated one time with the same setup, and the results from both repetitions were averaged for analyses. The numbers inside bars represent the average log (CFU + 1/g of tuber tissue) for the respective treatment. Results were considered to be significant at p = 0.05 and pair-wise differences were obtained using the t-test. Error bars represent standard deviation (SD).