Browsing by Author "Toledo Iglesias, Eloisa"
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- Seaweed extracts to control postharvest phytopathogenic fungi in Rocha pearPublication . Toledo Iglesias, Eloisa; Lemos, Marco Filipe Loureiro; Félix, Carina Rafaela Faria da CostaThe development of agriculture is one of the most important tools to alleviate poverty and feed the growing human population. However, in the last decades, there has been an unprecedented increase of phytopathogenic fungal infections on preharvest and postharvest, in orchards and fruits. These infections, enhanced by climate changes, cause losses between 20 to 25% of fruit industry total outcome and their management is typically achieved using chemical pesticides, known to be a risk for the environment and human health. Given the challenges that the agri-food industry has to endure, specifically, during the processes of fruit long-term storage, and the renown compounds that natural resources possess, the exploitation of the biotechnological potential of marine organisms is an opportunity to reduce this problem. Seaweeds have long demonstrated relevant antimicrobial properties against a wide variety of microorganisms, and thus, the present work aimed to find more sustainable, eco-friendly and safer solutions against postharvest fungal infections caused by Alternaria alternata, Botrytis cinerea and Fusarium oxysporum in Rocha pear, while adding value to seaweeds from the Portuguese coast. For that, different extracts (n-hexane, ethyl acetate, aqueous, ethanolic and hydroethanolic) from four different seaweeds, Asparagopsis armata, Codium sp., Fucus vesiculosus, and Sargassum muticum, were produced and tested against the three fungal pathogens. Regarding the in vitro assays, A. armata showed the most promising results, specifically for the ethyl acetate extract that inhibited the mycelial growth against B. cinerea (72.61%) and F. oxysporum (40.68%), and also, their spore germination. Furthermore, the ethanolic extract showed inhibition against the spore germination of the two fungi mentioned before and the hydroethanolic extract demonstrated a great inhibition in the mycelial growth of B. cinerea (70.61%). Also, it is worth to be mentioned the inhibitory activity of the aqueous extract from F. vesiculosus against the mycelial growth of B. cinerea (66.06%). Concerning the fruit assays using Rocha pear, the activity of the aqueous extract from S. muticum against the infection of B. cinerea should be highlighted, reaching a total of 50% of decay inhibition. The results revealed that not always the best hits obtained in vitro are necessarily the ones that will show the best results in vivo, and thus, the selection of conditions for further analyses should consider as much aspects as possible. The present work gave the first steps to fully understand the potential of the seaweeds in study for agriculture industry in the search for sustainable and safer solutions against postharvest diseases caused by phytopathogenic fungi.