Effective Management of Ginger Soft Rot Caused by Penicillium digitatum through Plant Extracts

In-vitro experimentation consisting of crude extracts of different plants and fungicides were performed for determination of antifungal activity against Penicillium digitatum, a plant pathogenic fungi responsible for ginger soft rot. Petri dish were used to conduct bioassay through poisoned food technique with triplicates. The crude extract of all the plants showed a better inhibitory effects on the pathogen’s (P. digitatum) mycelial growth rather than fungicides. Among all the plant extracts, the best result was showed by garlic extract with 87% of mycelial growth inhibition followed by moringa with 82%, the best concentration is 100mg/mL. Besides, Ridomil gold showed the most effective control against ginger soft rot with 84% of mycelial inhibition growth among all the tested fungicides. And found that protective treatment had a best effect than curative treatment. These results revealed that plants are rich source of metabolites with a wide range of antifungal activity against ginger soft rot. Crude extracts of these plants have potential to become effective biopesticides upon purified fractions with no hazardous effects on environment as well as humans.