Abstract
The study deal with potentiality of Saccharomycopsis fibuligera and essential oils for controlling the gray mold rot of guava fruits, caused by Botrytis cinerea. The endophytic yeast S. fibuligera was isolated from asymptomatic guava fruits and was tested for its ability to suppress gray mold along with eight essential oils. S. fibuligera successfully showed suppressive effect on mycelial growth B. cinerea comprising 48.52%, while thyme oil showed the highest inhibition impact of all tested essential oils, producing 26 mm inhibition zone at minimum inhibitory concentration value 0.2 mu l/ml. 90.04% of total constituents of thyme oil was identified via GC-MS analysis. The major components were carvacrol, gamma-terpinene, p-cymene and thymol. In vivo, thyme oil and S. fibuligera caused significant reduction in the disease at 78.6 and 67.9%, respectively. In conclusion, our study confirmed that thyme oil and S. fibuligera individually may be applied as future ecofriendly alternatives to synthetic fungicides for controlling the disease.