ISSN: 2578-4986
Authors: Kulkarni NN, Jagtap AB, Wadkar SS, Shete CC and Ghosh JS*
The growing population of human beings is demanding more food from the land under cultivation. It means that the cultivators use better varieties which will give higher yields per unit land. Secondly it has become a practice to do Integrated Disease Management to protect the crop from many diseases (especially of fungal origin). Synthetic chemicals are no doubt being used for this purpose, but these pose a threat to the biodiversity of the environment by their residual effect. Scientist is now looking at biological alternative for this purpose. One such disease is the mildew on various vegetable, fruit and flowering plants. These are very difficult to manage once these are seen. These diseases spread like wild fire and put the plant under severe stress by reducing their photosynthetic activities. One such weed – Lantana camara (L) has been studied for its antimicrobial properties. Methodology: The leaves of the plant were collected and dried in shade. These were pulverized and then extracted in deionized water and ethanol. The anti-microbial properties were studied using the agar well method. Finally field trials were carried out by spraying the extracts on infected leaves. Results: The ethanolic extracts showed marked antifungal properties against Aspergillus niger and Rhizopus oryzea whereas the aqueous extract were showing some anti-bacterial properties. The field trials showed that the ethanolic extract could clear more than 50% of the leaf surface with improved photosynthesis. Conclusion: The leaf extract of Lantana camara has the potential to be used as an anti-fungal agent against diseases like powdery mildew.
Keywords: Antimicrobials; Antifungals; Powdery Mildew; Coccinia Grandis; Erysiphe Cichoracearum
