Another study tested some of the characteristics that are important for transmission of "S. citri" by the beet leafhopper. Researchers tested the impacts of modes of acquisition on the latent period of "S. citri" within the leaf hopper and found that insects that had been injected directly with the prokaryote in their gut had the lowest latency period of 10 days followed by leaf hoppers who had ingested the pathogen from an infected plant (16 days). In testing the time taken for the insects to acquire "S. citri", the acquisition access period, researchers found that a time period of at least 6 hours of feeding on "S. citri" cultures were required for insects to acquire the pathogen. However this study should be viewed critically as insects were membrane fed a culture of the organism to determine this time period and actual results may vary when insects feed on an infected plants. The study also found that the numbers of host plants that were infected with "S. citri" increased with the numbers of infected leaf hoppers that were feeding on these plants.