[Excerpt] The need to increase food production to feed an increasingly growing world population has led to an intensive use of pesticides. Globally, 4.6 million tons of chemical pesticides are sprayed into the environment every year1 . Out of the total
consumption of pesticides, 17.5% are in the form of fungicides. However, pesticides
have undesirable characteristics, such as the development of pathogen resistance and
long degradation periods, and negative impacts on the environment, like soil and water
pollution, bioaccumulation in the food chain, toxicity to non-target organisms and
public health problems2
. Therefore, new environmentally friendly natural products,
which are effective, safe, biodegradable and leave no harmful residues are needed. [...]The need to increase food production to feed an increasingly growing world
population has led to an intensive use of pesticides. Globally, 4.6 million tons of
chemical pesticides are sprayed into the environment every year1
. Out of the total
consumption of pesticides, 17.5% are in the form of fungicides. However, pesticides
have undesirable characteristics, such as the development of pathogen resistance and
long degradation periods, and negative impacts on the environment, like soil and water
pollution, bioaccumulation in the food chain, toxicity to non-target organisms and
public health problems2
. Therefore, new environmentally friendly natural products,
which are effective, safe, biodegradable and leave no harmful residues are needed.
Propolis is a natural resinous mixture made by honeybees (particularly Apis
mellifera L.) from various plant sources and processed with salivary secretions. More
than 300 different compounds have been identified so far in propolis, including several
bioactive compounds such as flavonoids and phenolic acids and derivatives, which are
characteristic of plant secondary metabolism and are related with diverse biological
properties like antimicrobial and antioxidant activities3
. In this work we evaluated the
antifungal activity of ethanolic extracts (EE) from Portuguese propolis samples against
phytopathogenic fungi species responsible for considerable damage in several
economically important crops. Results showed that different propolis samples have
different fungitoxic efficiencies but also that different species exhibit different
susceptibilities. Globally, these findings suggest that propolis EE can be explored as
source of biofungicides for application in a more sustainable agriculture management.
In order to evaluate this propolis application, its phytotoxicity will be studied using in
vitro flax plants (Linum usitatissimum L.)
