Quantitative assessment of Agrobacterium spp. population size.

Cucumber seed- and root-associated Agrobacterium spp. and total bacteria targets were quantified using specific qPCR assays and normalized to the plant tef gene. The averages of the absolute and the relative (in brackets) abundances are presented (n = 4). The sampling days represent 4 plant developmental stages: Germination (1 day), primary root formation (2 days), first leaf (7 days) and vine-tip over (21 days).*Different letters indicate significant difference between samples after 1 day of germination. Determined by one-way ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey test (P**Determined by factorial ANOVA and post-hoc Newman-Keuls test (For all samples excluding Pythium inoculated ones).