International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 2 Number 7 (2013) pp. 123-134

Zingiber officinale Roscoe. Oil: A preservative of stored commodities against storage mycoflora

Neeta Sharma, Richa Tiwari* and Madhu Prakash Srivastava

Mycology and Plant Pathology Division, Department of Botany, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India *Corresponding author e-mail: tiwariricha1688@gmail.com

A B S T R A C T

In this communication bioactivity of essential oil extracted from Ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe.) that belongs to family Zingiberaceae was evaluated chemically. The essential oil has been extracted from ginger. The chemical components were analyzed by GC-MS. The oil yield was 2.0±0.03%. Ginger rhizome oil was effective against a range of bio-deteriorating storage fungi. The MIC value was determined by volatile activity assay. The study reveals that essential oil had a wide spectrum of antifungal activities against Aspergillus flavus, Penicillium expansum, Alternaria alternata and Fusarium oxysporum. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of oil was found to be effective showing results at 500ppm of oil in respect to all fungi. At higher concentration of 1000ppm of oil was fungicidal in action. The toxicity of the oil did not change even after the storage of 6 months

Keywords

Zingiber officinale; essential oil; post-harvest fungi; GC-MS; MIC.