Testing of Eight Medicinal Plant Extracts in Combination with Kresoxim-Methyl for Integrated Control of Botrytis cinerea in Apples

Botrytis cinerea is a fungus that causes gray mold on many fruit crops. Despite the availability of a large number of botryticides, the chemical control of gray mold has been hindered by the emergence of resistant strains. In this paper, tests were done to determine the botryticidal efficacy of selected plant extracts alone or combined with kresoxim-methyl. In total, eight South African medicinal plants viz Artemisia afra, Elyptropappus rhinocerotis, Galenia africana, Hypoxis hemerocallidea, Siphonochilus aetheopicus, Sutherlandia frutescens, Tulbaghia violacea and Tulbaghia alliacea were screened. Allium sativum, a plant species known to have antifungal activity, was included in the in vivo studies. For the in vitro studies, synergistic interactions between the plant extracts and the kresoxim-methyl fungicide were tested with radial growth assays. Data indicated synergistic inhibitory effects between the fungicide and the plant extracts. Next, different doses of plant extracts combined with kresoxim-methyl were used for decay inhibition studies on Granny Smith apples. Synergistic and additive effects were observed OPEN ACCESS Agriculture 2015, 5 401 for many of the combinations. Even though this study was done using only one strain of B. cinerea, results showed that the tested indigenous South African plant species possess natural compounds that potentiate the activity of kresoxim-methyl.