Uso de aloe vera para el control de pudrición de corona en la fruta de banano (musa aaa)

Abstract

The banana comes from Southeast Asia, is a plant that was cultivated 10 000 years ago and whose first traces were found in Papua New Guinea in the seventh century. This giant herbaceous, belonging to the monocotyledonous class and to the Musaceae family. In Ecuador it is one of the main crops of economic demand since it occupies 40% of exports in Latin America and the world. In banana, the main disease that affects postharvest is a fungus that causes crown rot "Crown rot". One of its main features is the softening of the superficial tissues and the rest of the crown takes a dark brown or black color reaching to completely damage the finger of the fruit. The antifungal effect of aloe (Aloe vera) was evaluated as an alternative, in different doses of Aloe vera gel 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, 10%, 5% and 1% (processed and unprocessed) . The experiment was conducted in the plant health laboratory of the Agricultural Sciences Academic Unit at the Technical University of Machala, the experimental design was a DCA, with 16 treatments and 4 repetitions per treatment, including chemical fungicides (Mertec and Fungaflor) and absolute witness. The variables studied were degree of severity of the disease, area under the disease progress curve (ABCPE) and degree of maturity. Aloe vera gel pulp was collected and the processed gel was bought in a supermarket (De Hoy brand), the unprocessed aloe vera was extracted and cut into squares, then a 200 ml beaker was placed. pulp to weigh and then liquefy it to be applied with a brush on the banana crown in the treatment of 100% gel, in the rest of the treatments the same procedure was followed, but it was adjusted with distilled water to reach 100ml. As for the chemical agent Mertec 20s was used in a dose of 0.5 ml in which it was dissolved in 99.5 ml of water, in product to be applied and then mixed, for the preparation of Fungaflor was made with a precision balance for can reach a dose of 0.06g and then be gauged with water to join the two products Mertec 20s and Fungaflor should give a single product that added the two have to be 100 ml to be applied in each treatment. In the present work it was evidenced that the Aloe vera gel presents an antifungal activity on crown rot in banana, since the T6 treatment (Aloe vera unprocessed at 5%) showed the best control over the disease, only being overcome statistically by T15 (Mertec + Fungaflor), it was also shown that the antifungal activity of Aloe vera depends on the dose to be used, since the treatments T8, T11, T10 and T10, were statistically equal to the absolute control, did not show any control about the disease.