Antifungal activity of Aloe vera, Beijing grass, ginger, and plantain against dominant phytopathogenic fungus isolated from mango Chokanan

Abstract

Mango fruits are exposed to different preharvest and postharvest diseases that caused by phytopathogenic fungi. Nowadays, the herbal extracts are used widely in agriculture industry as natural fungicides as it causes less adverse effect to both environment and living organisms. This study was aimed to evaluate the antifungal activity of aloe vera, Beijing grass, ginger and plantain against mango Chokanan fruit causing phytopathogeic fungus. In this study, three isolated phytopathogenic fungus: Fungus A, Fungus B and Fungus C were preliminary identified as Mucor circinelloides, Rhizoctonia solani and Lasiodiplodia theobromae respectively via morphology and growth behavior study. The antioxidant activity and total phenolic content of herbal aqueous and ethanol extracts were then evaluated using DPPH and Folin-Ciocalteu method respectively. Among the herbal extracts, the ginger ethanol extract showed the highest antioxidant scavenging activity (90.76+0.3629%) and total phenolic content (30.51+0.0706 mg GAE/g) while the Beijing grass aqueous extract showed the lowest antioxidant scavenging activity (20.49+0.2942%) and total phenolic content (14.53+0.0706 mg GAE/g). The in-vitro poison food method was performed to evaluate the antifungal activity of the herbal extracts. Among the herbal extracts, the ginger ethanol extracts obtained the highest mycelium growth inhibition percentage (43.46+1.1169%) while the Beijing grass aqueous extract obtained the lowest mycelium growth inhibition percentage (2.75+0.7833%). The ginger ethanol extract was then selected for in vivo antifungal susceptibility test. In the test, ginger ethanol extract indicated lowest disease incidence (26.67%) and disease severity (26.11%). Thus, it has high efficacy as natural fungicides of mango Chokanan fruits.