Article : Soil Science,Fertilizer & Plant Nutrition ; Antifungal and Antioxidative Activities of Yucca smallina Fern

The antifungal activity of crude methanolic extract and fractions from Yucca smalliana Fern. leaves, roots and flowers were investigated in vitro against a panel of plant pathogenic fungi. The minimal inhibitory concentration(MIC) was determined by an agar dilution method. Preliminary liquid culture and agar plate assays showed that the growth of Fu sarium oxysporum, Phytophthora capsici, Rhizoctonia solani and Botrytis cinerea were inhibited by Y. smalliana extracts. The extracts from flowers and leaves showed antifungal activity of 64.0% and 34.0% against F. oxysporum, 66.0% and 62.0% against P. capsici, and 27.0% and 41.0% against B. cinerea, respectively. The methanolic extract from Y. smallina leaves in distilled water was fractionated using solvents of increasing polarity: hexane, ethyl acetate and butanol. These fractions had a broad spectrum of antifungal activity, found to reside entirely in the butanol and aqueous fraction. The aqueous fraction showed inhibition rate of 60.0, 67.8, 84.6 and 58.3% against F. oxysporum, R. solani, C. gloeosporioides, and B. cinerea, respectively, and the butganol fracgtion showed 36.0, 46.0, 66.1 and 58.3%, respectively. Phenolics(e.g. flavonoids, steroids and terpenoids) were observed in the thin layer profile of the different fractions. Leave extract showed a prominent antioxidant activity totally scavenging the free radical of DPPH at a concentration of 1 mg/ml.