Antifungal activity of volatile organic compounds from essential oils against the postharvest pathogens , , , and .

Gray mold and brown rot, caused respectively by and spp., are fungal diseases responsible for significant losses during the storage of fruit and vegetables. Nowadays, the control of postharvest diseases is shifting towards more sustainable strategies, including the use of plant secondary metabolites. In this study, the antifungal activity of , , , , , , , , essential oils (EOs) in vapor phase was tested against , , and . For the experiments, a protocol using a volatile organic compounds (VOC) chamber was designed. Results indicate a dose-dependent inhibitory activity of all the tested EOs, with , , and being the most active ones, with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of 22.73, 45.45, and 22.73 µl/L, respectively, against and a range between 5.64 and 22.73 µl/L against the three spp. Overall, presented lower sensitivity to vapor-phase EOs than any of the strains, except for the EO, which consistently showed higher inhibition against . Among the three spp., was the least sensitive, while was the most sensitive. The use of VOC chambers proved to be a reliable protocol for the assessment of antimicrobial activities of EOs. These results suggest that the VOC emitted by the tested EOs are effective towards important decay-causing fungi, and that they could be used for the control of gray mold and brown rot in trials.