Phytotoxicity of chitosan-based agronanofungicides in the vegetative growth of oil palm seedling

PLoS One. 2020 Apr 21;15(4):e0231315. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231315. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Although fungicides could be the best solution in combating fungal infections in crops, however, the phytotoxic level of fungicides to the crops should be tested first to ensure that it is safe for the crops. Moreover, nanocarrier systems of fungicides could play a significant role in the advancement of crop protection. For this reason, chitosan was chosen in the present study as a nanocarrier for fungicides of hexaconazole and/or dazomet in the development of a new generation of agronanofungicides with a high antifungal potent agent and no phytotoxic effect. Hence, the encapsulation of fungicides into the non-toxic biopolymer, chitosan was aims to reduce the phytotoxic level of fungicides. In the present study, the in vivo phytotoxicity of chitosan-fungicides nanoparticles on the physiological and vegetative growth of oil palm seedlings was evaluated in comparison to its pure fungicides as well as the conventional fungicides. The results revealed the formation of chitosan-fungicides nanoparticles could reduce the phytotoxic effect on oil palm seedlings compared to their counterparts, pure fungicides. The chitosan-fungicides nanoparticles were seen to greatly reduce the phytotoxic effect compared to the conventional fungicides with the same active ingredient.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arecaceae / drug effects*
  • Arecaceae / growth & development
  • Chitosan / chemistry*
  • Crop Protection*
  • Fungicides, Industrial / chemistry
  • Fungicides, Industrial / toxicity*
  • Nanoparticles / chemistry
  • Nanoparticles / toxicity
  • Plant Diseases / prevention & control*
  • Seedlings / drug effects*
  • Seedlings / growth & development
  • Thiadiazines / chemistry
  • Thiadiazines / toxicity
  • Triazoles / chemistry
  • Triazoles / toxicity

Substances

  • Fungicides, Industrial
  • Thiadiazines
  • Triazoles
  • Chitosan
  • dazomet
  • hexaconazole

Grants and funding

The research was funded by Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia under LRGS-NanoMITe program, vote no. 9443100 and 5526300 and GP-IPS, vote no. 9647400. During this work, FNM was supported by the graduate research fellowship (GRF) and Sime Darby Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB). MPOB has provided support in the form of salaries for authors ASI and NHZH but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.