Preservative potential of cumin essential oil for Pisum sativum L. during storage

The samples of stored seeds of pea (Pisum sativum L.) were collected from 30 farmer markets. The mycobiota analysis showed presence of 15 fungal species and one species of insect Callosobruchus chinensis. The fungi such as Aspergillus flavus, A. niger, A. ochraceous, A. terreus were found to be dominant based on percent frequency of each in blotter method in unsterilized and sterilized seeds 18.9-7.9, 15.0-3.9, 12.2-3.7, 10.1-1.7, respectively, and in agar plate technique 17.9-8.3, 15.1-9.5, 12.8-5, 7.9.7-6.7, respectively. These species showed reduction in terms of weight loss, germination and protein content in pathogenicity testing. Essential oil extracted by hydrodistillation from fruits of Cuminum cyminum L. was evaluated against the most common occurring funi such as A. flavus and A. niger as well as the insect species C. chinensis and the oil exhibited high toxicity. The oil killed the tested fungi and showed thermostable nature at its minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 400 ppm. The oil safely preserved pea seeds up to 120 days at 0.50 (1,000 ppm) and 0.76 ml (1,500 ppm) in polyethylene and jute bags of 500 ml capacity containing 400 g seeds separately. There were no changes in organoleptic appereance of food seeds during storage. The oil has beneficial effect on number of visible nodule formation and shoot and root dry biomass of 15-day-old plants in comparison to control sets. The cumin oil was analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)