2.3 Root zone warming enhances tomato resistance to
powdery mildew disease
To determine whether RZW can induce tomato resistance to a biotrophic
fungus, we examined the effect of RZW on pathogenesis of theOidium neolycopersici , which causes powdery mildew disease in
tomato. Similar to the experiments detailed above for Bc andXcv , warming the root zone of tomato plants reduced the
development of natural infection of tomato powdery mildew with the
biotrophic fungus On (Figure 5 ).