Chemical Composition of Essential Oils of Iranian Pimpinella anisum L. and Foeniculum vulgare Miller and their Antifungal Activity Against Postharvest Pathogens

Increasing attentions have been paid on the application of essential oils and plant extracts for control of postharvest pathogens due to their natural origin and less appearance of resistance in fungi pathogens. In this study, in addition to the chemical analysis of Iranian anise and fennel essential oils, their fungicidal and/or fungistatic effects on two postharvest pathogens were investigated. Essential oils were extracted by means of hydro-distillation and afterwards GC-MS analysis was performed to identify their components. The main constituents were E-anethol (92.9 %), p-alylanisol (2.2 %), Z-α-biosabolene (1.8 %) for anise oil and E-anethol (71.2 %), limonene (8.2 %), Fenchone (8.53 %), Methylchavicol (7.01 %) for fennel oil. Both essential oils exhibited fungistatic effect on Aspegillus niger but fennel was more effective. Satisfactory fungistatic effects against Rhizopus stolinifer, a stubborn pathogen, were observed for fennel oil. Anise oil did not show significant inhibitory effect on R. stolinifer in used concentrations. It was shown that presence of E-anethol as the major component of both oils is not responsible for antifungal activity and especial antifungal activities arise from other reasons such as interaction of components or complexity of the oils.

‍