In Vitro and In Vivo Inhibition of Plant Pathogenic Fungi by Essential Oil and Extracts of Magnolia liliflora Desr

This study was carried out to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo antifungal efficacy of essential oil and extracts derived from the flower and leaves of Magnolia liliflora, respectively, against plant pathogenic fungi. The oil (750 μg disc) and various leaf extracts such as hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol (1,500 μg disc) revealed promising antifungal effects against Botrytis cinerea KACC 40573, Colletotrichum capsici KACC 40978, Fusarium oxysporum KACC 41083, Fusarium solani KACC 41092, Phytophthora capsici KACC 40157, Rhizoctonia solani KACC 40111 and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum KACC 41065 as radial growth inhibition percentages of 38 to 65.6% and 7.6 to 57.3%, respectively along with their respective MIC and MFC values ranging from (125 to 500 and 125 to 100 μg mL) and (500 to 4,000 and 500 to 8,000 μg mL). The oil had a strong detrimental effect on spore germination of all tested plant pathogens as well as concentration and time-dependent kinetic inhibition of P. capsici KACC40157. Also the oil displayed potent in vivo antifungal effect against one of the selected plant pathogens P. capsici KACC 40157 on greenhouse-grown pepper plants. The results of this study indicate that the flower oil and leaf extracts of M. liliflora could be used as natural alternatives to synthetic fungicides to control the in vitro and in vivo growth of certain important plant pathogenic fungi.