Estimation of inhibitory effects of peracetic acid and thymol on Monilinia laxa in vitro using response surface methodology and artificial neural network

Brown rot caused by Monilinia laxa (Aderh. and Ruhl.) Honey is the most important stone fruit decay on all commercially grown Prunus species. This study was undertaken to find out the optimum antifungal effect of concentration of peracetic acid (PAA) and thymol either alone or in combination and their time of action against M. laxa. The results showed that that PAA and thymol shows potent antifungal effects against the pathogen. Our findings have confirmed that proper PAA-Thymol mixtures may reduce the minimum effective dose of individual PAA and thymol. Time of action, concentration of individuals and mixture predicted using response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN). Appraisal of the models through the coefficient of determination (R2) and mean-square error (MSE) show that the ANN was superior (R2= 0.994) to the RSM model (R2= 0.957) in predicting the percentage of reduced conidial germination. The RSM model has predicted that the percentage of reduced conidial germination of 95.8% can be obtained within 5 minute under the concentration of 196.73 and 32.59 for PAA and Thymol, respectively. Our data confirmed that proper PAA-essential oils mixtures may reduce the minimum effective dose of individual PAA and thymol.

کلیدواژه ها:

brown rot ، peracetic acjd ، postharvest decay ، sanitizing product ، thymol