Introduction:

In several regions of the world, Fusarium oxysporum causes losses on tomato crops; for control it, chemical fungicides are used. Nevertheless, these fungicides causing environmental and resistance problems; therefore, ecological alternatives as plant extracts have been developed. Due to the aim of this work, identify phytochemicals present in ethanolic and aqueous extracts from Agave lechuguilla qualitatively, Carya illinoinensis, Jatropha dioica, Larrea tridentata, and Lippia graveolens and determine their antifungal activity against F. oxysporum.

Method:

The plants collected from the northeast of Mexico; crudes and concentrated plant extracts obtained; the inhibition percentage and inhibitory concentration to 50 % (IC50) of F. oxysporum for each plant extract were determinate trough microdilution in the plate method

Results:

The essential phytochemicals were flavonoids, saponins, tannins, and quinones. The antifungal activity showed at 1000 mg/L inhibition around 40 to 60% by aqueous crude extracts from leaves of L. graveolens and concentrated aqueous extracts from the stem of L. graveolens, respectively. The ethanolic extracts presented 100 % of inhibition for crude extracts of husk from C. illinoinensis; in leaves and stem from L. graveolens the inhibition started from 250 mg/L; for resuspended extracts, the inhibition started from 125 mg/L with L. graveolens stem and leaves; and finally in roots of A. lechuguilla and leaves from L. graveolens the inhibition started from to 250 and 500 mg/L respectively. The best IC50 was of 8.02 mg/L from the ethanolic resuspended extract of L. graveolens stem.

Conclusion:

The ethanolic plant extracts from L. graveolens, A. lechuguilla, and C. illinoinensis, showed 100 % of inhibiting activity against the development of F. oxysporum, representing an alternative for control of F. oxysporum.

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