Antifungal Potential of Selected Medicinal Plants Against Post-Harvest Fungi of Tomato

Abstract

Tomato belongs to the Solanaceae family. It is an essential vegetable crop of Pakistan. Production of tomato affected by viral, fungal, and bacterial diseases. Some post-harvest tomato fungal pathogens like Aspergillus, Alternaria, Fusarium and Rhizopus are major contributors to tomato fruit losses. The current research was focused to control these post-harvest fungal problems of tomato by application of some botanical extracts because these have no harmful residual effects like fungicides which influence fruit value and human health. For this purpose, infected samples were collected from a local market. Then fungi were isolated from these infected samples on PDA culture media. These purified fungal cultures were inoculated to healthy tomato fruits to confirm the pathogenicity of these fungal isolates. During management, trials inoculated fruits from each group were coated with different concentrations of Curcuma longa, Mentha piperita and Ocimum basilicum. A completely randomized design (CRD) was followed in these experiments with three replications. Data regarding the infected fruit area was recorded following the standard procedures Fisher’ s analysis of variance technique was used for analyzing the data and a significant differences test (LSD) was used for comparing differences among treatments using least at 5 % probability. The turmeric plant was more efficient than Basil and mint. At 200ppm concentration, the turmeric inhibits 80.1 % growth of Alternaria alternata on PDA media, but the growth rate was reduced up to 31.6% at 50_ppm concentration. Growth inhibition significantly reduced as concentration increased from 50ppm to 200 ppm concentration.