Effect of Bunga Ta'ang essential oil volatile vapour on growth of the plant pathogenic fungus: Ganoderma boninense

Summary
Bunga Ta’ang is the local name of an aromatic herbaceous plant traditionally used by the Bidayuh community in Sarawak to ward off ticks in domestic animals. The essential oil from this plant was screened and shows anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties against a wide range of pathogenic pathogen with varying effectiveness. Ganoderma boninense is a causal agent of basal stem rot (BSR) and upper stem rot (USR), an economic threat to the palm oil industries. The aim of this study is to determine the antifungal activity of the vapour from the essential oil of Bunga Ta’ang on G. boninense.

The Findings
This study indicates that the volatile vapour from Bunga Ta'ang essential oil showed strong inhibitory activity on G. boninensis suggesting that the volatile vapour can be used as an effective biological control agent. Further studies are necessary to investigate the specific compound in the essential oil that limit the growth of G. boninense. Whereas, future work on formulation design and field experiments need to be carried out in order to improve the efficacy and stability of the volatile compound as well as to reduce the production cost of compound as fungicides.

Figure 1: Effect of the volatile vapour from Bunga Ta'ang essential oil on radial mycelial growth of Ganoderma boninense evaluated using vapour-agar contact method. Results shown are average values of mycelium diameter from three replicates.

Figure 2: Antifungal activity of the volatile vapour from Bunga Ta’ang essential oils on Ganoderma boninense (7 days exposure).

The fungistatic activity observed from the volatile vapour suggested that the volatility of the oil’s chemical composition might influence the potency of the antifungal activity.