New co-products from an endangered tree species: Araucaria angustifolia (bertol.) kuntze

Abstract

Araucaria angustifolia is a notable tree species distributed in the Atlantic forest of central-eastern South America. It has been considered a critically endangered species. Due to competition from other land uses, including agriculture and Pinus plantations, A. angustifolia has lost distribution and plantation area. This study aims to investigate new co-products of A. angustifolia waste products that can be used to prevent agricultural diseases. Brown spot is the most common foliar disease of soybeans and is caused by Septoria glycines. In this work, we evaluated the antifungal activity of plant tissue-derived compounds against S. glycines. The ethyl acetate extract of A. angustifolia leaves showed antifungal activity and was analyzed by HPLC-PDA and GC-MS. The results show two compounds as the principal constituents of antifungal activity. Both compounds showed a base peak at m/z 79.08, but they could not be identified by comparison with GC-MS spectral libraries. However, peaks at m/z 91 and 119 indicate that both compounds may contain aromatic structures. As a result of this study, we found that A. angustifolia can be used to obtain reliable antifungal compounds against S. glycines.

Keywords

• co-products
• endangered
• species
• araucaria angustifolia