4.1. Plant Material, Culture and Infection

P. nigrum (ecotype Panniyur I) plants and the virulent P. capsici strain was provided by the Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Thiruvananthapuram, India. The plants were maintained as described in Asha et al. [35]. P. capsici inoculation protocols were done as described by Anith et al. [81]. P. capsici was sub-cultured on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) every two weeks. Healthy four tofive-week-old plantlets were selected, and the second youngest leaf was infected with P. capsici mycelial discs on the abaxial side. Control samples consisted of mock-inoculations with PDA alone. Infected leaves (IL) and the leaves immediately above the infected leaf which is denoted as the systemic leaf (SL) were sampled from the infected plantlets post 24 hpi and 48 hpi. Control (CON) leaves were collected from an equivalent site on the uninfected plantlets. All the experiments were carried out in triplicates.