ECO-FRIENDLY MANAGEMENT OF MAIZE PATHOGEN THROUGH BRYOPHYTE EXTRACT

An extensive use of fungicides ensured higher level of production in modern agriculture but has also posed a potential threat to the existing agro ecosystem. So, the design of new selective and highly effective green fungicide that causes no harm to human health and environment is quite important. Recent trends favour the use of alternative substances derived from natural plant extracts that are biodegradable and ecofriendly. Bryophytes which are oldest known land plants possess the quality of antimicrobial activity as they contain many secondary metabolites they are relatively free from attack by parasitic microorganisms.In the present study different concentrations of methanolic extracts of Bryophyte was screened for their antifungal activity against plant pathogenic organism to study the effect of plant extracts on test fungi. The results of antifungal assay revealed that all the concentrations of the extract showed good inhibitory activity against the tested pathogen. Highest concentration of the extract was found highly effective. Efficacy of bryophyte extracts against test fungi was compared with synthetic fungicides such as mancozeb, zineb, captan, carbanzen by poisoned food technique. Mancozeb was found to be highly effective for test fungi with 88.69 per cent inhibition in all the concentrations. Minimum per cent inhibition (53.92) was reported in captan at 10 per cent concentration. Methanolic extract of test plant showed maximum inhibitory effect against the growth of test fungi and compared with the commercially available fungicides suggested that it can be further used as biocontrol after perfect in vivo study.