In vitro antifungal activity of selected medicinal plant extracts against selected postharvest pathogens in fruits and vegetables
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Date
2015
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Fungal diseases are a major problem occurred in fruit and vegetable cultivations and during
post-harvest life of fruits and vegetables. Application of systemic fungicides is the most
common practice for commercial control of most of the post-harvest pathogens. Although
synthetic fungicides have provided effective control of major postharvest diseases, their
application may be harmful to human health and the environment and they become ineffective
after prolonged use (Awoitet al, 2013).There are some natural plant products with antifungal
activity against various fungal groups. Those natural compounds can be used to control the post-
harvest fruit and vegetable pathogens in environmental friendly manner(Pasteret al., 1995).
The current study was conducted to determine the antifungal activity of the leaves of
Azadirachtaindica(Neem) and Calendula officinalisLinn(Marigold) and the peel of the fruit of
Myristicafragrans(Nutmeg)
against post-harvest
disease
causing
Fusariumoxysporum,Rhizoctonia
Trichodermaspp. This experiment was conducted at the laboratories of Natural Products
Chemistry division of the Institute of Fundamental Studies (IFS), Kandy.
The selected plant materialswere collected from the home gardens in Kandy. Plant materials
were cleaned well under running tap water and air dried. The dried plant materials were crushed.
Each plant powder (50 g) was extracted with hexane,ethyl acetate, methanol and distilled water
respectively in a sequential process and the evaporation of solvent using rotary evaporator
finished 12 extracts.The fungal cultures were obtained from Pathology Division of Horticultural
Crops Research and Development Institute (HORDI), Gannoruwa, which were isolated from
fruits and vegetables. The antifungal assay was conducted in 9cm diameter petri dishes. The
extracts were dissolved in 10% Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) to prepare 5000 ppm concentration
of each extractand the 10% DMSO without plant extracts was used as the negative control.
The poisoned food technique (Chutiaet al., 2009) was used to test for the antifungal activity.
Plant extracts were mixed with the Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium and poured to the petri
dishes. The test fungal groups were inoculated with 8 mm diameter mycelial disc from 7- 10
daysold cultures. The plates were incubated at room temperature and colony diameter was
measured after three days. This experiment was conducted by using Two Factor Factorial in
Complete Randomized Design and data analysis was done by using Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA) in General Linear Model. The mean comparison was done by using Tucky pairwise
comparison method at significance level of 5% (α = 0.05) in Minitab 17 software.
Description
Keywords
Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Export Agriculture, Vegetable Cultivation, Fruit Cultivation