Introduction

Background

Most of disease of agriculture crops is caused by plant pathogenic fungi. Some of these fungal disease cause total losses to farmer such as potato late blight disease that occurred in Ireland in 1845 which was caused by oomycete Phytophthora infestans (Schumann,2000). 

oomycete Phytophthora infestans

Potato Late Blight clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbagIqYBijs&feature=youtu.be

Other common fungi that always cause diseases in plants are Ganoderma boninense, Pyricularia oryzae, Fusarium sp, Exserohilum rostratum, and Rhizoctonia solani which cause basal stem rot of oil palm, rice blast, root and stem rot, leaf spot and sheath blight of rice.

Pyricularia oryzae

Fusarium sp

Exserohilum rostratum

The most effective and common way used to inhibit fungi or a fungal spore is using chemical fungicides. Farmers are likely to choose chemical fungicides to protect their crops from fungal diseases because of faster effect, easy to get and cheaper compare to other method of crop protection.

Synthetic fungicides were shown to have undesirable attributes such as high and acute toxicity, long degradation period, accumulation in food chain and an extension of their power to destroy both useful organisms and harmful pests.
(Jaysinghe et.al, 2013).

This shows that the use of chemical fungicides is not good and can cause long term effects. Moreover, using chemical fungicides towards plant in long time can cause plant pathogens to develop resistance and it will be more difficult to fight the diseases. 

Even though, using chemical fungicides can give faster result but it is not encouraged as it will bring more negative effects in the future.

Antimicrobial compounds that are found in plant extracts are known to have the abilities to inhibit fungal growth. Extracts of plants have potential use to treat diseases caused by plant pathogenic fungi because of their antimicrobial properties. (Jaysinghe et. al, 2013).

Secondary metabolites such as phenols, flavonoids and phenolic glycosides are produced abundantly in plants and many of them contain antifungal activities.

Ficus deltoidea, commonly known as 'Mas cotek' is an herbal plant that is native in Southeast Asia (Shafaei et. al, 2015) .It is known that leaf extracts of F. Deltoidea have the presence of primary and secondary metabolites such as polyphenols, amino acids and flavonoids. (Shafaei et. al, 2015). 

The objective of the study

The general objective of the study was to determine the potential of Ficus Deltoidea leaf extract as an alternative to chemical fungicide for the control of plant pathogenic fungi. 

The specific objectives of the study were: 

• To extract antimicrobial compounds from the leaves of Ficus deltoidea

• To determine the effect of the extracted antimicrobial compounds on the mycelial growth and spore germination of selected fungal pathogens in vitro

The hypothesis in the study

The hypotheses of this research were: 

Ho:
The leaf extract will not give effects on the mycelial growth and spore germination of selected plant fungal pathogens.

Ha:
The leaf extract will give effects on the mycelial growth and spore germination of selected plant fungal pathogens.

How to do research

Today we are going to learn how to make a research.

What is a research paper? 

A research paper is a piece of academic writing based on its author’s original research on a particular topic, and the analysis and interpretation of the research findings.

It can be either a term paper, a master’s thesis or a doctoral dissertation.

CHOOSE A TOPIC

Choose a topic which interests and challenges you. Your attitude towards the topic may well determine the amount of effort and enthusiasm you put into your research.

Focus on a limited aspect, e.g. narrow it down from “Religion” to “World Religion” to “Buddhism”. Obtain teacher approval for your topic before embarking on a full-scale research. If you are uncertain as to what is expected of you in completing the assignment or project, re-read your assignment sheet carefully or ASK your teacher.

Select a subject you can manage. Avoid subjects that are too technical, learned, or specialized. Avoid topics that have only a very narrow range of source materials.


STEP 2. FIND INFORMATION

Surf the Net.

For general or background information, check out 

• useful URLs
• general information online
• almanacs
• encyclopedias online
• Britannica

Use search engines and other search tools as a starting point.

Pay attention to domain name extensions such as:

•  .edu (educational institution),
•  .gov (government),
•  .org (non-profit organization). 

These sites represent institutions and tend to be more reliable, but be watchful of possible political bias in some government sites. Be selective of .com (commercial) sites. Many .com sites are excellent; however, a large number of them contain advertisements for products and nothing else. Network Solutions provides a link where you can find out what some of the other extensions stand for. Be wary of the millions of personal home pages on the Net. The quality of these personal homepages vary greatly. Learning how to evaluate websites critically and to search effectively on the Internet can help you eliminate irrelevant sites and waste less of your time.

The recent arrival of a variety of domain name extensions such as
 .biz (commercial businesses), .pro, .info (info on products /organizations), .name, .ws (WebSite), .cc (Cocos Island) or .sh (St. Helena) or .tv (Tuvalu) may create some confusion as you would not be able to tell whether a .cc or .sh or .tv site is in reality a .com, a .edu, a .gov, a .net, or a .org site.

Many of the new extensions have no registration restrictions and are available to anyone who wishes to register a distinct domain name that has not already been taken. For instance, if Books.com is unavailable, you can register as Books.ws or Books.info via a service agent such as Register.com.

Library

To find books in the Library use the OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog).

Check out other print materials available in the Library:

Almanacs, Atlases, AV Catalogs
Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
• Government Publications, Guides, Reports
• Magazines, Newspapers
• Vertical Files
• Yellow Pages, Zip or Postal Code and Telephone Directories

Mainstream  sources

Check out online resources, Web based information services, or special resource materials on CDs:

• Online reference materials (including databases, e.g. SIRS, ProQuest, eLibrary, etc.)
• Google Scholar 
• Wall Street Executive Library
• Index to Periodicals and Newspapers (e.g. MagPortal.com, OnlineNewspapers.com, etc.)
• Answers.com – an online dictionary and encyclopedia all-in-one resource that you can install on your computer free of charge and find one-click answers quickly.
• Encyclopedias (e.g.Britannica, Canadian Encyclopedia, etc.)
• Magazines and Journals
• Newspapers
• International Public Library 
• Subject Specific software (e.g. discovering authors, exploring Shakespeare, etc.)
• Check out public and university libraries, businesses, government agencies, as well as contact knowledgeable people in your community.

Read and evaluate

Bookmark your favorite Internet sites. Printout, photocopy, and take notes of relevant information.


As you gather your resources, jot down full bibliographical information (author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, page numbers, URLs, creation or modification dates on Web pages, and your date of access) on your work sheet, printout, or enter the information on your laptop or desktop computer for later retrieval. If printing from the Internet, it is wise to set up the browser to print the URL and date of access for every page. Remember that an article without bibliographical information is useless since you cannot cite its source.

Abstract

Around 85 percent of plant disease are causd by fungal pathogens. Long term use of synthetic fungicides will lead to too much carcinogenic residue in soil and eventually will cause harm in terrestrial and aquatic biotic lives.

It is beneficial to find alternative ways to control the widespread of fungal diseases using environmental friendly-approaches.

The objectives of this study are:

• extract antimicrobial compounds from the leaves of Ficus deltoida

Ficus deltoidea

• determine the effect of the extracted antimicrobial compounds on the mycelial growth and spores germination of selected fungal pathogens in vitro

Two types of fungi were used is:

• Rhizoctonia solani

Rhizoctonia solani

• Ganoderma boninense

Ganoderma boninense

Mycelial growth procedure:

1. Leaves were washed and then ground.
2. Five gram of leaves powder was diluted in distiled waterand filtered using filter paper.
3. The filtrate was used to test the inhibitory effect on mycelial growth of the selected fungal pathogens using poison agar techniques in three replicates for each fungal pathogenat five different concentrations:

• 0% of leaf extracts (control)
• 5% of leaf extracts
• 10% of leaf extracts
• 15% of leaf extracts
• 20% of leaf extracts

Poisoned agar plates containing F.deltoidea extract showed inhibition of mycelial growth.

Percent inhibition of diameter growth  (PIDG) of:

• G. boninense ;55.9%; 7th day
• R. solani ;53.67%; 5th day

There was 100% inhibition occured for both G. boninense and R. solani at the concentration of:

• 10% of leaf extracts
• 15% of leaf extracts
• 20% of leaf extracts

Thus, this showed that extracts of Ficus deltoidea has the potential to be used as a bio fungicide, a safe substitute to chemical fungicides.