POTENTIAL EFFECT OF MEDICINAL PLANTS AGAINST Penicillium digitatum (Sacc.) CAUSING POSTHARVEST DECAY IN CITRUS FRUIT

Citrus fruits belong to thefamily Rutaceae produced all around the world.Different fungal pathogens including Penicillium digitatum is the causal agent of green mold disease consider as the major postharvest disease of citrus with economic losses of 10 to 100 billion dollars throughout the world. Medicinal desert plants extract is used as a bio-control agent against the postharvest diseases of fruits. Different products are obtained from these desert plants and are being used for medicinal purposes and also proven good to control different diseases in fruit plants. They contain antifungal properties that cease fungal growth through different ways. These plants extracts are used because they do not contain any side effects and control fungal growth. These medicinal plant extracts are also cheap in their cost and former can obtain them easily from the market and their disease controlling percentage is also much higher. At 200ppm C. colocynthis inhibit 79.33% growth rate. As compared to C. colocynthis, Capparis decidua has minimum inhibitor effect on Penicillium digitatum growth. During management different plants extractwere used for fruits coating. Completely randomized design CRD was used in lab and for greenhouse experiments. For comparing the differences between the means least significant difference test (LSD) was used at the 5% variation. The ultimate aim of the present research is to replace synthetic fungicides by using natural products to increase theshelf life of fruits, their economic value by reducing residual effects of fungicides. Citrullus colocynthis has strong inhibition effect against Penicillium digitatum.