Background: Using plant crude extracts on the control of microbial agents is increasing, because of medicinal, antifungal, antibacterial and antioxidant properties of plant-based secondary metabolites. Objective: The present work was conducted to find out antifungal activity of peppermint and access to the best solvent to elicit antifungal metabolites from peppermint. Methods: Aerial parts of peppermint were dried and crude extracts were obtained using water, methanol, ethanol, acetone and chloroform. The antifungal activity of this plant was evaluated on mycellial growth of phytopathogenic fungi, Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium oxysporum, Phytophthora dershleri and Bipolaris sorkiniana using two different methods, paper disc and agar diffusion. Results: The results of the tested solvents demonstrated that water is the best to elicit the inhibitory compounds from peppermint. Methanol and acetone extracts had little inhibitory effects on B. sorkiniana while ethanol and chloroform extracts could not elicit inhibitory compounds against all of tested fungi. The mycellial growth of F. oxysporum and B. sorkiniana was inhibited at the concentration of 2mg/paper disc while the other two fungi was affected at the concentration of 4 mg/paper disc. In agar diffusion method, aqueous extract completely supperesed the growth of P. dershleri and B. sorkiniana at 500 and 1000 ppm of the crude extract, respectively. However, the mycellial growth of R. solani, F. oxysporum was not completely supperesed even at 2000 ppm. Conclusion: From these results it was concluded that peppermint possesses sufficient in vitro activity on the control of tested phytopathogenic fungi. Besides, it can be stated that water is the best solvent among the tested solvents for extracting the antifungal compounds from peppermint.

Background: Some of plants have antifungal properties because of special compounds in their contents, Objective: The present study was conducted to evaluate the antifungal activities of five plant species collected from Kermanshah including Anthemis altissima, Eucaliptus sp. Euphorbia heteradenia, Asparagus officinalis and Carthamus oxyacantha against Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium oxysporum, Phytophthora drechsleri and Bipolaris sorkiniana. Methods: The fungitoxicity of crude extracts of the different parts of Anthemis altissima, Eucaliptus sp., Euphorbia heteradenia, Asparagus officinalis and Carthamus oxyacantha on the Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium oxysporum, Phytophthora dershleri and Bipolaris sorkiniana was verifed in vitro by means of paper disc method, Crude extracts were obtained using water, methanol and ethanol, Each paper disc was impregnated by 5mg of each extract. Results: Methanolic extracts of Carthamus oxyacantha in seeding stage and leaves of Eucaliptus sp, showed the highest inhibitory property against the mycelial growth of B, Sorkiniana, Aqueous and ethanolic extracts of Carthamus oxyacantha and aqueous extract of Anthemis altissima significantly inhibited the growth of P, dershleri, Methanolic extract of Eucalyptus sp, and Carthamus oxyacantha supperesed the mycelial growth of F, oxysporum, Ethanolic extract of Carthamus oxyacantha showed highest inhibitory activity against R, Solani. Conclusion: Results indicated that extracts of Carthamus oxyacantha, Anthemis sp., Eucaliptus sp., Euphorbia sp. and Asparagus sp. have broad ranges of antifungal activity against phytopathogenic fungi, surprisingly all of extracts of Carthamus oxyacantha did not show any inhibition against all tested fungi.