*4.6. Pathogen Culture and Inoculations*

Culture and inoculation of the blast fungus *M. oryzae* (compatible race 007.0) was conducted essentially as previously described [12], with slight modifications. Briefly, the fungus was grown on an oatmeal agar medium (30 g/L oatmeal, 5 g/L sucrose, and 16 g/L agar) at 26 ◦C for 10–12 day. After removing the aerial hyphae by washing with distilled water and a brush, conidia formation was

induced by irradiation under continuous black blue light (FL15BLB; Toshiba, Osaka, Japan) at 24 ◦C for 3 day. The conidia were suspended in 0.02% Silwet L-77 (a non-ionic surfactant; Nihon Unica, Tokyo, Japan) at a density of 105/mL, and were sprayed onto rice plants at the four-leaf stage. After incubation in a dew chamber at 24 ◦C for 24 h, the rice plants were moved back to the greenhouse.

Disease development was evaluated by determining the *M. oryzae* genomic 28S *rDNA* [26] by qRT-PCR [5,6], 6–7 dpi. At least 20 plants were used for each disease assay.
