Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were successfully prepared by -rays irradiation of solution containing 1.0-10 mM of silver nitrate and 1% chitosan. The optical characteristics and particles sizes of AuNPs were determined by UV-Vis spectra and TEM images, respectively. The size of AgNPs increased by the increase of silver concentration or the decrease of chitosan molecular weight in irradiated solution. The in vitro test showed that AgNPs inhibited the growth of Corynespora cassiicola on rubber-leaf extract media with the inhibitory efficiency of 52.1-100% by treatment of AgNPs with particle size from 15 to 5 nm, respectively. In addition, antifungal activity was found to reach ∼100% by the addition of 90 ppm AgNPs. The in vivo foliar treatment of AgNPs on 9-month-old rubber plants showed that the treatment with 2.5-12.5 ppm AgNPs on tested plants after inoculation by spraying with C. cassiicola spores enhanced the rate of non-disease-infected plants from 6.0 to 93.3%, respectively, compared to the untreated control. The inhibition effect of AgNPs on fungal growth of C. cassiicola mycelial was also elucidated via SEM images. The AgNPs/chitosan synthesized by -irradiation is potentially promising to use as a fungicidal product for treating C. cassiicola, a serious pathogen fungus on rubber trees.

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Plants are source of many high-value secondary compounds used as drugs, food additives, flavors, pigments and pesticides. The production of these compounds in nature faces to many difficulties because of the dependence on weather, soil … Furthermore, these compounds are usually limited by species, periods of growth or stress. The utilization of plant cells in vitro for the secondary compounds has gained increasing attention over past decades. However, the yield is still low, probably due to the degree of cell differentiation. Therefore, root culture is focused on research as an alternative to cell cultures to produce secondary compounds because of high rate proliferation, great potential in the production with high and stable yields. Hairy roots and adventitious roots have a high ability to biosynthesize secondary compounds in vitro with high and fairly stable in yield in comparison with plant cell suspension cultures. Nowadays, it is feasible to expand the scale of root cultures in bioreactors, which makes it possible to produce secondary compounds on an industrial scale.