Plant extracts as Biofungicide: Future Prospects: Biocontrol of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum using botanicals

In recent years, concerns have been raised about the environmental impact and the potential health risk related to the use of chemical fungicides in agriculture. Interests have been generated in the development of safer antifungal agents such as plant based essential oils and extracts. In the present study, crude methanol extracts from leaves of twelve different medicinal plant species were evaluated in vitro for their efficacy against phytopathogenic fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum that causes white mould disease in a wide a variety of crops. Further, five selected plant extracts were evaluated for management of white mould disease of french bean in field conditions. Application of extracts by seed treatment method was found to be more effective than soil and root dip treatments. Piper betle, Polygonum hydropiper and Vitex negundo extracts as seed treatment showed the best control effect in terms of reducing the infections and enhancing plant growth. These results provide promising baseline information on the potentiality of these plants to develop novel, efficient and eco friendly herbal antifungal products as alternatives of chemical fungicides.