Aloe vera gel enriched with garlic essential oil effectively controls anthracnose disease and maintains postharvest quality of banana fruit during storage

Banana is a tropical fruit that suffers from several postharvest diseases during transportation and storage. Anthracnose caused by the fungus Colletotrichum musae is the most destructive postharvest disease of banana. The aim of this study was to determine the antifungal activities of Aloe vera (AV) gel coating alone or in combination with garlic oil (GO) at two concentrations (AV+GO 0.05% and AV+GO 0.1%) in vitro and in vivo against anthracnose disease of banana fruit. The results showed that the AV gel coating incorporated with GO was more effective as a fungicide than AV gel alone. The highest antifungal activity was observed in AV+GO 0.1% treatment, which significantly inhibited the mycelial growth and spore germination by 87.7 and 91.2%, respectively, compared to the control. In vivo study indicated that AV gel combined with GO 0.1% effectively reduced anthracnose disease incidence (92.5%) and severity (81.0%) in artificially inoculated banana fruit after 15 days of storage. The same treatment delayed the changes in weight loss, firmness, soluble solids concentration, and titratable acidity. Moreover, AV gel coating and GO enhanced total phenolic contents and total antioxidant activities of banana fruit. These results suggested that AV gel combined with GO can be used as an effective biofungicide for controlling anthracnose disease of banana fruit.