Study of essential oil activity on Curvularia sp. a rice leaf spot pathogen in Madagascar

Rice leaf spot have been observed on many fields during survey of rice diseases in three regions in Madagascar. Curvularia sp. was the most frequently isolated pathogen from the most severe diseased samples. This pathogen has been reported worldwide to cause important losses. Then in this work, we study the possibility to develop an alternative method to control Curvularia sp. Plants or plant extracts have been traditionally used to control human and plant diseases. Nowadays, the problem of residues of phytopharmaceutical products, reinforce the need for research on the development of natural plant extracts to control plant diseases. Madagascar has many endemic plants of interest. The antimicrobial properties of essential oils from Malagasy aromatic plants were evaluated. The main steps of this study are (i) the in-vitro screening of 39 Malagasy essential oils to control this pathogen, (ii) the evaluation of the phytotoxicity (on rice plants) of the efficient essential oils and (iii) the in vivo test of the activity of these non phytotoxic essential oils on Curvularia sp. on rice seedlings. The activity of essentials oils on Curvularia sp. has been tested in vitro during a microscale ELISA plate bioassay using optical density for a rapid evaluation of the biofungicidal activity of the extracts. Essential oils that showed interesting antifungal effect on this pathogen were tested for their phytotoxicity on rice plants. Briefly, one to two drop(s) of essential oils were applied on 3 leaves leaves of three weeks rice seedling. Six essential oils over the 39 tested showed an interesting antifungal activity with a percentage of growth inhibition greater than 70%. Three essential oils tested were phytotoxic as they induced necrotic spots on rice leaves after 48 h. Among three essential oils left, one of them showed an important effect when applied on rice seedling inoculated with a conidial suspension of Curvularia sp. These results confirmed that some essential oils present an antifungal activity. And even some of them are phytotoxic on rice plants, some essential oils show interesting potential to be an alternative method against rice diseases.