Bioactividad del aceite esencial de Chenopodium ambrosioides colombiano

introduction: plants have developed self-protecting chemical mechanisms to avoid being attacked by insects, fungi, bacteria, and viruses. the diseases caused by these pests are controlled with pesticides of high toxicity, therefore, it is necessary to use alternative compounds like essential oils. essential oils are potential botanical sources of compounds having the same function as the pesticides. however, they have some advantages over the latter such as low toxicity for mammal, high volatility and toxicity for pests and microorganisms which attack stored products. its volatile insecticidal property made it to be known as fumigant. chenopodium ambrosioides l. (chenopodiaceae) has been reported for its potential antiparasitic properties, including antiprotozoal activity. objective: this study determine the fumigant, antifungal, and antioxidant activities of essential oils isolated from chenopodium ambrosioides l. and their volatile chemical composition. methods: the essential oil (eo) was obtained from leaves of c. ambrosioides by hydrodistillation whereas the volatile chemical composition was determined by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry detector (gc-ms). the fumigant activity assay of the essential oil was performed against sitophilus zeamais. the antifungal activity on plant pathogenic fungus (fusarium oxysporum f. sp. dianthi) and the antioxidant potential were determined through the discoloration test of dpph. radical. results: the major component found in the essential oil from c. ambrosioides was a-terpinene (60.29 %), followed by p-cymene (20.49 %), 4-carene (7.96 %) and trans-ascaridol (1.91 %). c. ambrosioides was active against fusarium oxysporum, with a mycelial inhibition of 97.3 % at 176.5 μl eo/l air after 72 h of exposure; and a mortality rate against sitophilus zeamais of 100% at 500 μl of essential oil per air liter after 24 h of exposure. the inhibition percentage of dpph？ radical was 84.89 %. conclusions: this study demonstrat