Vegetos

Abstract

Prolonged use of synthetic fungicides for the protection against plant pathogens are causing several side effects on environmental as well as human being by entering into food chain. Show that there is urgent need to develop alternative of these chemicals. In present research we have develop a natural fungicide from the well known medicinal plant Annona reticulata. The comparative antifungal activities of silver nanoparticles as well as methanolic extract of A nnona reticulata were studied against four plant pathogenic fungal strains namely Fusarium oxysporum, Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotium rolfsii and Alternaria spp. The methanolic extract prepared by cold extraction method and the silver nanoparticles were prepared by aqueous root extract of A nnona reticulata. The silver nanoparticles formation was confirmed by the color change, UV-Vis spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscope.

The excellent inhibitory activity of nanoparticles were observed against Sclerotium rolfsii (95.6%) followed by Rhizoctonia solani (80.09%), Alternaria spp. (85.7%) and Fusarium oxysporum (81.74%) at 62.5 μg/ml where as the methanolic extracts show comparatively less effectiveness. The Phytochemical screening and GC-MS analysis of A nnona reticulata reveals that it has several bioactive compounds such as Andrographolide, Benzoic acid, 2, 4, 6-trimethyl-, 2, 4, 6-trimethylphenyl ester, Reticuline etc. which are responsible for antifungal activity.