| Summary: | Fungal infections of cultivated food crops result in extensive losses of crops at the global level, while resistance to antifungal agents continues to grow. Supercritical fluid extraction using CO<sub>2</sub> (SFE-CO<sub>2</sub>) has gained attention as an environmentally well-accepted extraction method, as CO<sub>2</sub> is a non-toxic, inert and available solvent, and the extracts obtained are, chemically, of greater or different complexities compared to those of conventional extracts. The SFE-CO<sub>2</sub> extracts of <i>Achillea millefolium</i>, <i>Calendula officinalis</i>, <i>Chamomilla recutita</i>, <i>Helichrysum arenarium</i>, <i>Humulus lupulus</i>, <i>Taraxacum officinale</i>, <i>Juniperus communis</i>, <i>Hypericum perforatum</i>, <i>Nepeta cataria</i>, <i>Crataegus</i> sp. and <i>Sambucus nigra</i> were studied in terms of their compositions and antifungal activities against the wheat- and buckwheat-borne fungi <i>Alternaria alternata</i>, <i>Epicoccum nigrum</i>, <i>Botrytis cinerea</i>, <i>Fusarium oxysporum</i> and <i>Fusarium poae.</i> The <i>C. recutita</i> and <i>H. arenarium</i> extracts were the most efficacious, and these inhibited the growth of most of the fungi by 80% to 100%. Among the fungal species, <i>B. cinerea</i> was the most susceptible to the treatments with the SFE-CO<sub>2</sub> extracts, while <i>Fusarium</i> spp. were the least. This study shows that some of these SFE-CO<sub>2</sub> extracts have promising potential for use as antifungal agents for selected crop-borne fungi.
|
|---|