Abstract
Owing to their various application fields and biological properties, natural products and essential oils (EO) in particular are nowadays attracting more attention as alternative methods to control plant pathogens and pests, weeds, and for post-harvest applications. Additionally, to overcome EO stability issues and low persistence of effects, EO encapsulation in β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) could represent a promising avenue. Thus, in this work, the EO distilled from two aromatic plants (Salvia sclarea L. and Coriandrum sativum L.) have been evaluated in vitro for their antifungal, herbicidal and insecticidal activities, against major plant pathogens and pests of agronomical importance. Both plants were grown on unpolluted and trace-element-polluted soils, so as to investigate the effect of the soil pollution on the EO compositions and biological effects. These EO are rich in oxygenated monoterpenes (clary sage and coriander seeds EO), or aliphatic aldehydes (coriander aerial parts EO), and were unaltered by the soil pollution. The tested EO successfully inhibited the growth of two phytopathogenic fungi, Zymoseptoria tritici and Fusarium culmorum, displaying IC50 ranging from 0.46 to 2.08 g L−1, while also exerting anti-germinative, herbicidal, repellent and fumigant effects. However, no improvement of the EO biological effects was observed in the presence of β-CD, under these in vitro experimental conditions. Among the tested EO, the one from aerial parts of coriander displayed the most significant antifungal and herbicidal effects, while the three of them exerted valuable broad-range insecticidal effects. As a whole, these findings suggest that EO produced on polluted areas can be of great interest to the agricultural area, given their faithful chemical compositions and valuable biological effects.
Highlights
Used in traditional medicine, essential oils (EO) are these days raising great interest, owing to their diverse application fields [1,2,3]
It was abundant in the EO distilled from coriander seeds, with relative proportions ranging between 76.2 and 80.6%, for the EO distilled from the biomass grown on unpolluted and polluted sites, respectively (Table 1). γ-terpinene represented a significant proportion of coriander seeds EO
The growing number of studies related to EO biological effects tends to demonstrate their suitability for the development of natural products-based biopesticides [4,17], provided that EO stability issues are solved
Summary
Used in traditional medicine, essential oils (EO) are these days raising great interest, owing to their diverse application fields [1,2,3]. Insect pests cause significant losses in terms of quantity and quality of the products, in field or during postharvest storage This is the case for the silverleaf whitefly, Bemisia tabaci Genn. As part of an integrated pest management system, the use of natural products, including EO, considered as biocontrol tools, is greatly encouraged [16,17], especially in the current context, where regulatory restrictions lead to the withdrawal of several commercial products [15,18] Owing to their relatively low toxicity for humans and animals, EO are registered as “Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS)” products by the Food and Drug Administration, and regarded as less harmful to both environmental and human health, in comparison with commercial pesticides [19,20]. They receive increasing public support, considered as eco-friendly products [4,20]
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