Composition, Antifungal, Phytotoxic, and Insecticidal Activities of Essential Oil.

Essential oils (EOs) are some of the outstanding compounds found in that can exert antifungal, phytotoxic, and insecticidal activities, which encourage their exploration and potential use for agricultural and food purposes. The essential oils (EO) obtained from collected in the East Azerbaijan Province (Iran) were characterized using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Thymol was the most important compound (60.48%), although 35 other active compounds were identified in the EO. Significant amounts of carvacrol (3.08%), -cymene (5.56%), and γ-terpinene (6.67%) were found in the EO. The EO was tested against important phytopathogenic fungi (, and ). The antifungal assay showed that the use of ≥500 ppm of EO resulted in a fungicidal effect against all funguses tested. In a similar way, the use of ≥500 ppm of EO inhibited the germination of all crop weed seeds ( L. and L.) and their subsequent growth, which demonstrated its herbicidal effect. Finally, the insecticidal capacity of EO was also observed against selected insects ( and ). was more susceptible to the effect of EO (LC = 4.78 µL/L air) than (LC = 13.20 µL/L air). The obtained results of the present study can provide new safe resources to the development of new products for the food, agriculture, and pharmaceutical industries.