Antifungal properties of Mimusops elengi seeds against paddy seed-borne fungi and selected pathogenic fungi

Aims: The ever-revolving fungi strains and environmental and health concerns due to current practice of synthetic pesticide in agricultural fields have encourages more ventures into bio-pesticides research. Mimusops elengi, a widely available endogenous plant in tropical countries and most parts of this plant have been proven to possess medicinal and antimicrobial potential. In this study, M. elengi seeds crude extracts are tested for their antifungal activities on paddy seed-borne and pathogenic fungi. Methodology and results: The dried and grinded M. elengi seeds are macerated separately using water, methanol, ethyl acetate, dichloromethane and petroleum ether as extraction medium. Crude extract of each solvent was used on paddy seed surface treatment to determine their antifungal inhibition potential on seed-borne fungi and paddy grain germination. Synthetic fungicide mancozeb and thiram are also tested as comparisons to the performance of plant extracts. Water and methanol extracts exerted the best fungal inhibiting and grain germination results from the five crude extracts tested and qualitative phytochemical screening reveals both extracts contained the most number of phytoconstituents including saponin, flavonoids, alkaloids, tannins and phenolic. Water extract, methanol extracts and synthetic fungicides are then subjected to in-vitro bioassay to observe their effect on mycelial growth of several fungi strains pathogenic to paddy namely, Fusarium fujikuroi, Curvularia aeria, C. lunata and C. eragrostidis. Water and methanol extracts showed a very similar trend of inhibition on all four fungi strains tested with best percentage of inhibition on mycelia growth of C. eragrostidis followed by C. aeria, C. lunata and least effective on F. fujikuroi. Further separation of crude extract need to be done to isolate the specific acting compounds contributing to fungal growth inhibition. Conclusion, significance and impact of study: Both water and methanol extracts of the seeds contain promising antifungal properties on seed borne fungi which is as good as the synthetic fungicides compared in this study. A broad range of active phytochemical properties it possesses may be the contributing factor for the fungal growth inhibition. This preliminary screening could narrow down the potential of this seed extracts as natural antifungal agents and the acting active compounds.