Patent ID: 8455395

Claim:
A method of preparing a conifer seedling with increased tolerance to an insect or fungal pest, comprising: a) inoculating a nursery grown conifer seedling with an isolated toxigenic endophyte that can colonize the conifer seedling, during a susceptible time window, wherein the nursery conifer seedling is inoculated by spraying on the conifer seedling liquid particles of an inoculum composition comprising the isolated toxigenic conifer endophyte and water, so that at least a portion of the toxigenic endophytes and water contact the conifer seedling in an environment of wetness, he inoculating step occurring during the susceptible time window that is post germination during sustained elongation of the shoot apex, when the conifer seedling's percentage of needles of intermediate differentiation is greater than the percentage of needles of complete differentiation in which the cuticle is fully formed; and b) drawing the conifer seedling to obtain the conifer seedling with increased pest tolerance to the insect or fungal pest, wherein the increase tolerance is relative to conifer seedling grown from an uninoculated conifer seedling; and wherein the toxigenic endophyte is selected from the group of toxigenic endophytes deposited with Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures (CBS) international depository agency in the Netherlands, having the accession numbers consisting of CBS 120377, CBS 120378, CBS 120381, CBS 120379, CBS 120380, CBS 121946, CBS 121945, CBS 121944, CBS 121943 and CBS 121942.