natural-products-in-plant-pest-management

226 R.N. Kharwar and G. StrobelP. infestans in tomato plants (Park et al., 2005). Induced resistance wasgenerated in tomato plant against fusarium wilt by endophytic Fusariumoxysporum (Duijff et al., 1998). Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is a common root-,crown- and stem-rot-causing pathogen in cabbage, common bean, citrus, celery,coriander, melon, squash, soybean, tomato, lettuce, cucumber and so on.Cyclosporine is characterized as a major antifungal substance against S. sclerotiorumfrom the fermentation broth of F. oxysporum S6 (Rodriguez et al.,2006). F. oxysporum strain EF119, isolated from roots of red pepper, showedthe most potent in vivo anti-oomycete activity against tomato late blight andin vitro anti-oomycete activity against several oomycete pathogens (Kimet al., 2007). Out of 510 endophytic fungi screened, 64 strains exhibited antifungalactivities against Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, Candida krusei,Cryptococcus neoformans, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus flavus, Rhizopusoryzae, Trichophyton rubrum and Microsporum canis (Anke et al., 2003).Narisawa et al. (2000) found that the root endophytic hyphomycete Heteroconiumchaetospira suppressed Verticillium yellows in Chinese cabbage inthe field. Verticillium wilt is one of the most destructive diseases of aubergine.Eleven out of 123 isolates of endophytic fungi, especially Heteroconiumchaetospira, Phialocephala fortinii, Fusarium, Penicillium, Trichoderma and myceliumradicis atrovirens (MRA), after being inoculated onto axenically rearedaubergine seedlings, almost completely suppressed the pathogenic effects ofa post-inoculated, virulent strain of Verticillium dahliae (Narisawa et al., 2000).Out of 39 endophytes of Artemisia annua investigated, 21 showed in vitro antifungalactivity against crop-threatening fungi Gaeumannomyces graminis var.tritici, Rhizoctonia cerealis, Helminthosporium sativum, Fusarium graminearum,Gerlachia nivalis and Phytophthora capsici (Liu et al., 2001). The extracts ofendophytic Alternaria sp., isolated from medicinal plants of Western Ghats ofIndia, inhibited the growth of C. albicans (Raviraja et al., 2006). About 41.2%of all the isolated endophytic fungi from rice plants showed antagonismagainst Magnaporthe grisea, Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium moniliforme. Colletotrichumgloeosporioides (Penz) Penz & Sacc. was isolated as an endophytefrom healthy leaves of Cryptocarya mandioccana and had antifungal activityagainst phytopathogenic fungi Cladosporium cladosporioides and Cladosporiumsphaerospermum (Inacio et al., 2006). Fungal endophytes Chaetomium spp.,Phoma sp., isolated from asymptomatic leaves of wheat, reduced the numberof pustules and the area of pustules of Puccinia recondita f. sp. Tritici (Dingleand Mcgee, 2003). An in vitro study showed 40%, 65% and 27% antagonisticinteraction by endophytic morphospecies against cacao pathogens Moniliophthoraroreri, Phytophthora palmivora and Crinipellis perniciosa, respectively,while in-field endophytic C. gloeosporioides produced a significant decrease inpod loss (Mejia et al., 2008).For novel natural products, exciting possibilities exist for those who arewilling to venture into the wild and unexplored territories of the world toexperience the excitement and thrill of engaging in the discovery of endophytes,their biology, and potential usefulness. It is evident that naturalproduct-basedcompounds have an immense impact on modern medicine.For instance, about 40% of prescription drugs are based on them, and well