Potential usage of an ancient plant lawsonia inermis (henna) and murraya koenigii (curry leaves) as biofungicides against damping off disease pathogens / Neni Kartini Che Mohd Ramli … [et al.]

Malaysia is one of the inheritance nations with rich medicinal plant and herbs species. Henna (Lawsonia inermis) and Curry leaves (Murraya koenigii) has been used in traditional herbal medicine for decades. Henna leaves have been traditionally used for dying hair, skin and nails since antiquity were found to exhibit strong fungi toxicity and non-phytotoxicity. Meanwhile, thc leaves of M. koenigii also known as Kare, with aromatic smell are commonly used for food flavoring in some Indian and Asian cooking. Leaf extracts of M. koenigii have also been reported to possess antifungal, antineoplastic and antioxidant activities. However, the benefits of these plants have been discussed only in a few publications in regard to medical usage. The potential usage of this plant against plant pathogens was none. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the antifungal activity of the leaves extracts of L. inermis and M. koenigii in vitro against the Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium sp, and Pythium ultimum pathogens of damping off disease. The presence of phytochemicals was also investigated. Leaves of L. inermis and M. koenigii were extracted with hexane, chloroform and methanol. The antifungal activity of both leaves extracts against damping off disease pathogen was determined by using well diffusion method on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA). Among treatments, maximum in vitro inhibition was scored in methanol extracts of L. inermis and M. koenigii which offered inhibition zone of 100% (at 25,000ppm) and 58% (at 100,000ppm) against R.solani; 54% and 50% inhibition against Fusarium sp and 44% and 6% inhibition against Pythium sp respectively. However, L. inermis hexane extract showed higher inhibition against Fusarium sp (61.57%) compared to R. solani (29.89%) and Pythium sp (32.98%). Unfortunately, the hexane extracts of M. koenigii did not show any inhibition. Chloroform extracts of Henna and Curry leaves were found to be ineffective or showed poor inhibition against all tested pathogens. The phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloid, glycoside and tannin (in methanol extract) in both leaves extracts except flavonoid and triterpenoid which is only present in Henna extracts. These results suggested that L. inermis and M. koenigii leaves extracts potentially could be used to control damping off disease caused by Pythium sp. Fusarium sp and R.solani.