Essential oils as bio-fungicide against strawberry Colletotrichum acutatum

Plant diseases cause severe yield losses and fruit decay and postharvest losses, if not controlled in the early production cycle. Colletotrichum spp. can cause strawberry nurseries plant death up to 80% and reduce fruit yield over 50%. Essential oils (EO) due to their antimicrobial and antifungal activity, low toxicity and biodegradability might be promising as biocontrol products in plant protection instead of chemical fungicides. During this study five essential oils of Salvia officinalis, Coriandrum sativum, Hyssopus officinalis, Mentha piperita and Thymus vulgaris at different concentrations (200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 mu L L-1) were studied in vitro on Petri plates against strawberry C. acutatum. The single-spore C. acutatum isolate fragment was placed in the centre of potato dextrose agar with different concentrations. Results of our experiment showed that Thymus vulgaris EO (>200 mu L L-1) had the highest inhibition of C. acutatum. Salvia officinalis, Mentha piperita and Coriandrum sativum, showed an inhibitory effect when applied at 1000 mu L L-1 concentration. Hyssopus officinalis inhibited C. acutatum at 800 mu L L-1 concentration. Our results showed that essential oils are a promising tool as bio-fungicides against strawberry C. acutatum.