Abstract

ASSAY OF BOTANICAL OILS AGAINST IMPORTANT PHYTOPATHOGENIC FUNGI

Tahira Parveen*, Naveen Sharma and Kanika Sharma

Abstract

In vitro antifungal activity of six essential oils of Oscimum tenuiflorum (Purple leaves/ Krishna Tulsi) Cymbopogon citrates (Nimbu ghas), Origanum majorina (Sweet majoram), Ocimum citriodorum (Nimbu tulsi) Oscimum bascillicum (Gulal tulsi) and Ocimum sanctum (Green leaves /Shree tulsi) were investigated against three economically important phytopathogenic fungi, Pythium aphanidermatum, Fusarium solani and Fusarium moniliformae isolated from infected ginger rhizomes. The experiment was carried out by Whatman disc method using Whatman paper No.3 on Potato Dextrose Agar with three replicates. Six concentrations of essential oils i.e., 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90% were assayed against all the three test fungi respectively. The experiment was carried out at 27ᵒC and mycelial growth was measured after every third day, upto 15 days. The result showed that all the six types of essential oils suppressed the mycelial growth of all three test fungi upto various level. Among the three tested fungi Pythium aphanidermatum was found to be the most sensitive and showed 100% growth inhibition at all concentrations by all the six essential oils used. It is an evident from this study that all the oils used in this study, may have potential to control plant pathogenic fungi and these could be considered for developing new fungicides.

Keywords: Antifungal activity, Essential oils, Pythium aphanidermatum, Fusarium solani, Fusarium moniliforme.