Abstract

In a bid to investigate the antifungal properties of cashew fruit (apple fruit), a fungal sensitivity test on both ethanolic and aqueous cashew apple fruit extract was conducted. The results revealed rather an experimental serendipity. The aqueous extract of the fruit gave little or no inhibition at all on the isolates, instead, it served as a better growth medium for the fungi. The ethanolic extract gave an opposite result to what was obtained from the aqueous extract. The results revealed that aqueous cashew apple fruit extracts allowed better growth of the isolates than potato dextrose agar (PDA) which served as standard growth media. The mean fungal culture growths recorded on fifth (5) day using this aqueous cashew apple fruit extract (ACAFE) was: 91.18 ± 4.4, 100.00 ± 0.00,100.00 ± 0.00 and 89.41 ± 6.65% for Aspergillus niger, Rhizopus stolonifera, Fusarium oxysporium and Penicillium chrysogenum, respectively; while minimal growths (25.50 ± 3.48,30.00 ± 4.43, 17.68 ± 2.78 and 55.88 ± 05.76%) were shown on fungal cultures from the ethanolic cashew apple fruit extract (ECAFE).Hence, this research shows discovery of a potential growth medium for fungi should further studies be considered on the aqueous extract of cashew apple fruit. It equally shows that ethanolic extract of the cashew apple fruit is a potent fungicide possible due to exposure of fungal bioactive components such as volatile oils, triterpenoids and phenolics.