About the Authors

Sudeep Bag

Contributed equally to this work with: Sudeep Bag, Neena Mitter

Affiliation Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, United States of America

Neena Mitter

Contributed equally to this work with: Sudeep Bag, Neena Mitter

Affiliation Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia

Sahar Eid

Affiliation Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, United States of America

Hanu R. Pappu

hrp@wsu.edu

Affiliation Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, United States of America

Competing Interests

This study was funded in part by the National Onion Association of the USA. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HRP NM SB. Performed the experiments: SB SE. Analyzed the data: SB HRP NM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SB HRP NM SE. Wrote the paper: SB HRP NM.