Sulfonyl-containing compounds, which exhibit a broad spectrum of biological activities, comprise a substantial proportion of and play a vital role, not only in medicines but also in agrochemicals. As a result increasing attention has been paid to the research and development of sulfonyl derivatives. A series of thirty-eight 2-substituted phenyl-2-oxo- III, 2-hydroxy- IV and 2-acyloxyethylsulfonamides V were obtained and their structures confirmed by IR, ¹H-NMR, and elemental analysis. The in vitro and in vivo bioactivities against two Botrytis cinerea strains, DL-11 and HLD-15, which differ in their sensitivity to procymidone, were evaluated. The in vitro activity results showed that the EC50 values of compounds V-1 and V-9 were 0.10, 0.01 mg L-1 against the sensitive strain DL-11 and 3.32, 7.72 mg L-1 against the resistant strain HLD-15, respectively. For in vivo activity against B. cinerea, compound V-13 and V-14 showed better control effect than the commercial fungicides procymidone and pyrimethanil. The further in vitro bioassay showed that compounds III, IV and V had broad fungicidal spectra against different phytopathogenic fungi. Most of the title compounds showed high fungicidal activities, which could be used as lead compounds for further developing novel fungicidal compounds against Botrytis cinerea.
Keywords: Botrytis cinerea; acetophenone; ethylsulfonamides; fungicidal activity; structure-activity relationship; synthesis.