NATURAL RESOURCES: AN ECOFRIENDLY AND SAFER ALTERNATE TO CONTROL PLANT DISEASES

As the focus of the world is shifting towards natural products and analogues, the demand of herbal medicine is also increasing and several plants have been screened for antifungal activity. Review of literature reports that plant extracts have been mostly screened for activity against human pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Compared to this, there are very few reports regarding inhibitory activity against plant pathogenic fungi. Although there are several reports of antifungal activity of plant products yet not much work has done to develop herbal bio-control agents or formulations using plant products or extracts. Herbal Products are cheaper than chemicals with minimal or practically no adverse side effects on hosts. Eucalyptus globulus extract has been screened for antifungal activity against human pathogenic fungi and bacteria but very few reports are available regarding plant pathogenic fungi especially early blight caused by Alternaria solani. Antifungal activity of organic substances has been reported by some workers but no study till date has been reported on preparation of herbal formulation by combining plant powder, extracts and organic substances. The present work proposes to develop a formulation by combining plant extracts/ plant powder with these traditionally used organic substances for control of early blight of tomato caused by Alternaria solani. This type of formulation will provide a cheap and environmentally safe herbal fungicide that can be further used as a commercial herbal bio-control agent.