Biochemical and biological studies on pomegranate peels and leave juices / Sekina Sayed Emam ; Supervised Radwan Sedky Farag , Mohamed Saad Abdellatif , Mohamed Maamoun Mowafy

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Agriculture - Department of Agriculture Biochemistry

The present study aimed to through some light on the herbicidal, insecticidal and fungicidal activities of pomegranate peels and leave juices. Therefore, leave and peels of pomegranate plants were manually separated and mechanically pressed to obtain their crude juices. The phytochemical results indicated that pomegranate peels juice contained high quantities of polyphenols and flavonoids, being about 1.22 and 1.43 times as great as that of leave juice, respectively. HPLC was used to characterize the polyphenolic compounds in pomegranate leave and peels juices. Thirty and eight polyphenolic compounds were separated from pomegranate peels and leave, respectively and nearly 50% of these compounds were quantitatively determined. Leave and peels juices of pomegranate were tested in vitro for herbicidal activities against five weed seeds (avena fatua L., polypogen monspeliensis L., Imperata cylindrical Capsella bursa pastoris L. and amaranthus retroflexus L.). The treatment of weed seed with the crude pomegranate juices of peels and leave reduced the weed seed germination. Insecticidal activities for cotton leaf worm were recorded. Cotton leaf worm at 4th instar larvae were found for significant mortalities when treated with pomegranate peels and leave juices being 68.05% and 56.25%, respectively. Microscopical examination of midgut of cotton leaf worm treated with pomegranate peels and leave juices showed the incidence of necrosis for some epithelial cells lining and loss of great number of goblet cells. While cuticle of cotton leaf worm lost most of exo- and endocuticle and hypodermal cells

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