Bowling Turnips you may get an antifungal solution.!

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ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF HOT WATER EXTRACTS OF TURNIP (BRASSICA RAPA)

SARIRI R.*,AHMADVAND S.

* UNIVERSITY OF GUILAN, DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, RASHT, IRAN


Turnips are among most commonly grown and widely adapted to environmental conditions and eating habits of Iran. The roots are consumed as a cooked vegetable and the leaf tops as potherb like spinach. In folk medicine, the powdered seed is said to be a remedy for cancer and breast tumors. In this research, screening of hot water, methanol, ethanol, n-hexane and chloroform extracts of turnip was carried out to investigate there in vitro antifungal activity against Penicillium sp., Aspergillus oryzae, A. niger and the dandruff-associated fungi Malassezia globosa. Agar well diffusion method was used throughout investigation. It was found that crude turnip extracts using hot water as extraction solvent exhibited the highest antifungal activity against all tested microoganisms. However, Penicillium sp. was more resistant to all extracts than A. niger and A. oryzae, while Malassezia globosa showed the highest sensitivity to allextracts, especially to water extracts. On the other hand, the antifungal index of all turnip extracts with various concentrations against test fungi was measured by agar dilution assay. The results of this part of research revealed that the antifungal activity was increased with increase in concentration of extracts.