Mycorrhizal infection rates, disease incidences and indices of tomato ‘receiver’ and ‘donor’ plants infected by <i>Alternaria solani</i>.

‘Receiver’ plants of all four treatments were inoculated with A. solani 65 h after pathogen inoculation in the ‘donor’ plants. Four treatments included: A) a healthy tomato ‘receiver’ plant was connected with a neighboring A. solani challenged tomato ‘donor’ plant through common mycorrhizal network of Glomus mosseae; B) a healthy ‘receiver’ plant was grown near A. solani challenged ‘donor’ plant but no mycorrhiza was applied; C) a healthy mycorrhizal ‘receiver’ plant was grown near the pathogen challenged mycorrhizal ‘donor’ plant but the two tomato plants separated by water proof membrane and D) a healthy ‘receiver’ plant was connected with the neighboring plant by common mycorrhizal network without pathogen inoculation. Four sets of bioassays were independently carried out and three pots per treatment were set up for each set of bioassays. Values are means ± standard error. Significant differences (P<0.05 using Tukey post-hoc test) among treatments in the same column are indicated by different letters. Results of ANOVA analysis and each set of bioassays are presented in the Supporting Information (Table S1 and Table S2).