Efficiency of Medicinal Plants to Control Seed Borne Fungi of Sorghum Grains

Abstract

Seed-borne fungi are the most important constrained factor which causing quantitative losses, produce highly toxic and carcinogenic mycotoxins. Plant based fungicides appear to be one of the better alternatives as they are known to have minimal danger to consumers in contrast to synthetic pesticides. In view of the negative public health and economic impacts of storage fungi this study, aimed to determine the efficiency of some plant extracts for reduction or control of seed borne fungi in sorghum grains in agar plate methods. The results obtained revealed that seed treated with Olea europaea leaf extract was found the least in incidence of seed-borne fungi (50%) followed by Capsicum annuum (53.3%) in agar plate methods. Therefore, utilization of these plants as bio-control agents is recommended to reduce the proliferation of storage fungi. Keywords: plant extracts; seed borne fungi; sorghum