Antioxidant and Antifungal Effects of Six Plant Essential Oils Against <em>Penicillium digitatum</em> and <em>Penicillium italicum</em>

Six aromatic plants (Lavandula pedunculata subsp. sampaioana, Lavandula stoechas subsp. luisieri, Mentha × piperita, Origanum vulgare subsp. virens, Thymus mastichina, and Thymus zygis subsp. sylvestris) were analysed to evaluate their essential oil yield, chemical compo-sition, antioxidant activity and antifungal capacity against two mold species, green mold (Penicillium digitatum (Pers.) Sacc.) and blue mold (Penicillium italicum Wehmer). The antioxidant activity was found to be at its lowest in Lavandula pedunculata subsp. sam-paioana (3.84 ± 0.26) and at its highest in Thymus zygis subsp. sylvestris (161.70 ± 0.15). Similarly, the in vitro antifungal capacity assay produced different results depending on the essential oil used: the lowest value was produced by Thymus mastichina essential oil, and the highest by Thymus zygis subsp. sylvestris. All the data collected reveal a positive correlation between antioxidant activity, as meas-ured by DPPH and ABTS assays, and the inhibition halo created by the essential oils used in this study.