Fig. 3

Evaluation of available inoculation methods of wild apple leaves with V. mali. A The leaves of M. sieversii infected with V. mali using 5 different infection methods (M1-M5). B The disease incidence rate, C the lesion area of inoculated leaves using M1-M4 methods. Lesion areas were assessed by ImageJ. D The relative V. mali biomass of infected leaves using M1-M4 methods. M1-M5: Leaves of M. sieversii were punctured (200 μL) and inoculated with 5 different methods. M1 was inoculated with a mycelial plug for 24 h, and M2-5 was soaked in mycelial filament suspension for 10 min. The mycelium grown on PDA media was scraped with 200μL sterile tips (M2), the mycelium grown on PDA media with cellophane was fragmented with glass beads (200 rpm) for 30 min (M3), the mycelium grown in the PDL media for 7 days was fragmented with glass beads (200 rpm) for 30 min (M4), and the mycelium grown in PDL media with glass beads (200 rpm) for 7–9 days. The relative V. mali biomass was determined by RT-qPCR. Data are the means ± SE of three biological repeats (sample size of 10 leaves). A student’s t-test was performed. **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001