Fungitoxicity of essential oils and extract of some aromatic plants against Fusarium Oxysporum from Carica Papaya

Abstract

The infected papaya were collected from the local market of Kathmandu. The fungus was isolated and identified as Fusarium oxysporum, that cause surface rot of Papaya. Pathogenicity test was carried out for the conformation of disease. For the control measures, the essential oils and extracts of 5 aromatic plants viz. Acorus calamus, Mentha arvensis, Cymbopogon flexuosus, Cinnamomum tamala and Xanthoxylum armatum were used and assessed their fungitoxic effect against the test fungus. Each essential oils and extracts was diluted to different concentrations and the value of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) were obtained. The MIC of oil and extracts are 2.5 and 10 lml-1 for Cymbopogon flexuosus, 10 and 40 lml-1 for Mentha arvensis, 20 and 60 lml-1 for Xanthoxylum armatum, 40 and 80 lml-1 for Acorus calamus and 40 and 120 lml-1 for Cinnamomum tamala respectively.