Evaluation of the antifungal activities of Zingiber officinale on fungi isolated from contaminated maize

Abstract

One of the major challenges faced by farmers in developing countries is how to control seed-borne fungal pathogens leading to poor crop yields. The conventional control methods are expensive and, in most cases, resulted in environmental pollution and health hazards. The study seeks to examine the effects of ginger Zingiber officinale on fungi isolated from mouldy maize. This method could serve as an environmentally friendly and affordale way of checking this pathogen. The One hundred grams (100g) of the dried powder of Zingiber Officinale was weighed separately into 400 mL of the extracting solvent (Ethanol, methanol and ethylacetate) in different conical flasks, labelled accordingly and stored over a period of 72hours after which the antifungal properties for the plant extracts were determined using agar dilution method of Banso and Mann, 2016. Various concentrations (10 mg/mL, 20 mg/mL, 30 mg/mL and 40 mg/mL) of the extract were also prepared and used to determine the minimum inhibitory concenteration and minimum fungicidal concentration. The test microorganisms used were Rhizopus stolonifer, Mucor mucido and Fusarium solani. The results of the study illustrated that the test organisms were susceptible to Zingiber officinale at different varying concenterations and this further implies that Zingiber officinale could serve as a form of preservative for stored grains leading to a significant product yield for farmers during the harvest season Control experiments were performed without the extracts.