P6685

Erlenmeyer flasks containing 50 ml of potato dextrose broth (Sigma Aldrich, USA; catalog number P-6685; prepared using 24 g/L and autoclaved at 121°C for 15 minutes) were inoculated with the test fungi and incubated at 28°C. After 5 days, the culture broth and fungal mycelia were carefully separated. A 50 ml volume of 3:2:1 (v/v/v) ethyl acetate: chloroform: methanol was added to each flask containing culture broth, followed by shaking overnight on a rotary shaker. Extracts were centrifuged at 5000 rpm for 30 minutes and the supernatant incubated in a water bath at 45°C for 8–10 h to concentrate the extract to a volume of 10 ml (Jaiswal et al., 2012 ).
Sesame seeds were surface sterilized in 5% sodium hypochlorite for two minutes followed by 3 rinses in sterile distilled water before suspending in culture filtrates (10 ml). Following incubation at 28 ± 2°C for 24 h, seeds were removed from the filtrate extract and washed once in sterile distilled water. Treated seeds were plated on 1.5% water agar in 90 mm diameter Petri dishes, with 10 seeds per dish. Control seeds were treated with distilled water prior to plating on 1.5% water agar. After 7 days of incubation, shoot and root lengths were recorded. In addition, a vigor index was calculated (Jalander and Gachande, 2012 ) following the formulae: