Plant Secondary Metabolites for Antifusarium and Antiphytophthora

Abstract

Plants produce secondary metabolites that are essential for survival of the producing plants such as to attract insect for pollination and defend against pest and environmental stress. Plant secondary metabolites are widely exploited by the mankind especially for medicine, one of which is to protect against infection by microorganism including fungi. Many medicinal plants have been traditionally used and/or studied for the fungicidal activity. Most of the plants studied or traditionally used as antifungi show antiphytoph-thora activity and some of them also active as antifusarium. Higher concentration plant extract is needed to inhibit the growth of Fusarium than Phytophthora. Considering the concentration in plant and activity as antifungi, eugenol is considered to be the most effective to be used as antiphytophthora and antifusarium. The presence of aromatic moi-ety, orthodioxy substitution, and double bond in the terminal of site chain is considered to be essential for the antifungal activity of the eugenol derivative.