Studying antifungal effect of pennyroyal against plant pathogenic fungi

One of the important components of medicinal plants is essential oils that have many biological effects. Using of natural compounds to control pests and plant diseases, is one of the ways to reduce environmental hazards. Replacement industrial fungicides by natural compounds (especially with plant origin) that are not toxic, has attracted a lot of attention. In this experiment, the inhibitory effect of different concentrations of the essential oil of pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium L.) belonging to the Lamiaceae family, that is an important, economic and high consumption of medicinal plants in Iran, studied against plant pathogenic fungi Fusarium equiseti, Fusarium cerealis ،Fusarium graminearum, Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lentis, Fusarium proliferatum, Aspergillus niger, Botrytis cinerea and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. For this purpose, factorial experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with three replications. Also, oil extracted by clevenger apparatus in concentrations 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 ml of essential oil per liter of PDA medium were used and without essential oil medium considered as control. Results showed that pennyroyal essential oil has a significant effect on inhibiting the growth of pathogenic fungi and with increasing concentrations, the inhibitory effect significantly increases, so that maximum inhibitory effect (IP) of fungal growth observed at concentrations 0.6, 0.8, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 ml of essential oil per liter of PDA medium.