Essential oil of Piper macedoi Yunck. leaves, potential alternative for the management of banana anthracnose disease

The fungus Colletotrichum musae could cause a disease called anthracnose which reduces the quality of the banana fruit in the postharvest period. Anthracnose causes rots, peel lesions and generate great economic losses. Synthetic fungicides, used as an attempt to reduce the pathogen population, although effective, when used in amounts and frequency above the recommended, cause damage the environment and human health and can induce resistance. Research has focused in the search for alternative methods to reduce the use of synthetic substances in managing of agricultural diseases. The control of pathogens using compounds of natural origin is highlighted among new management techniques. Thus, we aimed to extract and characterize the essential oil from Piper macedoi leaves and evaluate its effect in the inhibiting the mycelial growth of the fungus C. musae in vitro. The essential oil was extracted by hydrodistillation, analyzed and characterized by Gas Chromatography and submitted to assays of fungicidal activity with C. musae. In comparison with dry plant material, yield of P. macedoi essential oil was 0.93 %. Piperitone (26.48 %), silvestrene (13.03 %), and bicyclogermacrene (10.45 %), were the major compounds identified in the essential oil composition considering the percentage in area. Regarding the antifungal activity tests, the essential oil showed a low inhibitory concentration (IC) for the IC50 (0.804 mL.L⁻¹) and IC90 (1.80 mL.L⁻¹), showing that the essential oil from P. macedoi leaves has great potential to control C. musae.