Antifungal Activity of Chitosan Nanoparticles Against Some Plant Pathogenic Fungi In Vitro.

Abstract

The inhibitory affects of different concentrations of high and low molecular weight of chitosan (CH-HMw and CH-LMw, respectively) and chitosan nanoparticles (CH-HMw-NPs and CH-LMw-NPs, respectively) against linear growth and spores/sclerotia germination of the 18 phytopathogenic fungi of tomato, potato and green bean were evaluated in vitro. The studies showed that CH-HMw-NPs and CH-LMw-NPs were highly effective against all tested pathogenic fungi compared with CH-HMw and CH-LMw. Furthermore, CH-HMw-NPs and CH-LMw-NPs at concentrations 0.1% and 0.05% showed completely inhibited (100%) the mycelial growth of all tested pathogens. Meanwhile, Chitosan HMw and LMw at 1.0% caused 100% reduction of all tested pathogenic fungi. Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium solani followed by F. oxysporum and Macrophomina phaseolina were highly sensitive to all concentrations of chitosan than Alternaria solani, Sclerotium rolfsii and Phytophthora infestance. This study claimed that chitosan NPs could be a new development for the generation of chitosan based bio-nanopesticides against fungal diseases exploited for delivery of agrochemicals.