Effects of essential oils from thyme, cinnamon and clove on mycelial growth of Colletotrichum acutatum
Effects of the volatile phase of thyme, cinnamon and clove essential oils on Colletotrichum acutatum were investigated. Mycelial disc was placed in the center of the Petri dish (V=66 ml) containing PDA. Different volumes of either non- or ethanol-diluted essential oils were placed on the inner side of the dish cover to obtain final concentrations of 153, 107, 76, 46, 15, 14, 12, 11, 7.6, 3.82, 1.53, 0.153 and 0.0153 ?l/L of air. The dishes were sealed with Parafilm and incubated in up-side-down position. After 7 days of incubation, mycelial growth was recorded by measuring the colony diameter. If no mycelial growth was recorded, the disc was transferred to a new PDA plate in order to evaluate whether the activity was either fungistatic or fungicidal. Mean growth values were obtained and then converted to inhibition percentage of mycelial growth compared with the control treatment. All the tested essential oils inhibited mycelial growth of C. acutatum in the dose dependent manner. Mycelial growth was totally inhibited by thyme oil in the concentration of 76 ?l/L of air. The same results were obtained by cinnamon and clove oil in the concentration of 107 ?l/L of air. Thyme and cinnamon oil had fungicidal effect in concentrations of 107 and 153 ?l/L respectively. The results obtained provide evidence on the antifungal in vitro effect of the tested essential oils as potential means for the control of C. acutatum.