I hope to monitor how fungal conidia (colletotrichum acutatum) infect on dead pepper fruits. so, I dipped sliced fragments of a pepper fruit in boiling water for 30 seconds and inoculated fungal conidia on the surface of the boiled pepper fragments. Am I doing correctly ? I can not sure whether the pepper cells died or not because the cuticle layer seems protective of the pepper cells. Do you think the pepper fruits died after boiled in water for 30 seconds?
I think it will die. you can try to boil it for 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 seconds and see the results.
30 sec in hot water (=100oC) is a long time.
In living insects, dipping in water at 70°C (1 sec) or 55°C (30 sec) caused 100% mortality of blueberry maggot pupae (see pdf attached).
For plant cells, you need to consider if your treatment will change the longevity of the pepper. To determine that, your should compare a control treatment (e.g. dip the pepper at low temp (say 25oC)) vs a treatment temp (say 70oC) for a standardized duration say 10 sec.
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