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The plant kingdom offers a wealth of molecules with potential efficacy against various human, animal, and plant crop infections and illnesses. Cannabis sativa L. has garnered significant attention in recent decades within the scientific community due to its broad biological activity. Key bioactive compounds such as cannabinoids and phenolic compounds have been isolated from this plant, driving its bioactivity. Numerous studies have highlighted the impact of different agronomic practices, particularly fertilization, on the phytochemical composition, notably altering the percentage of various chemical groups. This review aims to present updated fertilization recommendations, crop requirements, and their implications for the chemical composition of C. sativa plants, along with major biological properties documented in the literature over the past five years. Various databases were utilized to summarize information on fertilization and crop requirements, chemical composition, bioassays employed, natural products (extracts or isolated compounds), and bioactivity results. Through this review, it is evident that C. sativa holds promise as a source of novel molecules for treating diverse human diseases. Nonetheless, careful consideration of agronomic practices is essential to optimize chemical composition and maximize therapeutic potential., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

Background: One of the main problems that fruit health has gone through in recent years is the problematic eradication of their fungal pathogens during crops or the post-harvest stage. This concerns the whole world because it represents huge production losses, fruit export restrictions, and consumer distrust. Consequently, new alternatives are sought to avoid the increasing use of fungicides that cause important damage to fruit consumers and the environment. One of the alternatives to solve this problem could be exploring plants and their active compounds applied to the treatment of fruit health., Materials and Methods: This article describes peach production worldwide and particularly in Argentina, in addition to the main fungal rot that causes the greatest economic losses. Furthermore, experimental in-vitro studies of 69 extracts obtained from 18 plants growing in the central region of Argentina were displayed against the devastating fungus Monilinia fructicola, which greatly affects stone fruits. A simple and effective method developed in agar plate was applied to evaluate a large number of samples in a short time., Results: The results showed that approximately 36% of the samples tested were strongly active against this pathogen, 12% were moderately active, and 52% demonstrated to be inactive., Conclusion: These findings support the possible use of natural products for fruit health and the importance of deepening in this field of science., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

Persicaria acuminata (Polygonaceae) is a perennial herb that grows in the central area of Argentina and it is commonly used by native populations to heal infected wounds and other conditions related to fungal infections. In this article, we explored the in vitro antifungal activity of its ethyl acetate extract against a panel of three fruit phytopathogenic fungi including: Penicillium digitatum , P. italicum, and Monilinia fructicola . The sesquiterpenes isolated from the extract were also evaluated against these strains, demonstrating that the dialdehyde polygodial was the responsible for this activity. In order to encourage the use of the extract rather than the pure compound, we displayed ex vivo assays using fresh oranges and peaches inoculated with P. digitatum and M. fructicola , respectively, and subsequently treated by immersion with an extract solution of 250 and 62.5 µg/mL, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences between the treatments with commercial fungicides and the extract over the control of both fruit rots. The concentration of the active compound present in the extract used on fruit experiments was determined by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy. Finally, cytotoxicity evaluation against Huh7 cells showed that P. acuminata extract was less cytotoxic than the commercial fungicides at the assayed concentrations. After these findings we could conclude that a chemically characterized extract of P. acuminata should be further developed to treat fungal diseases in fruits from an agro-ecological model.