antimicrobial screening of fennel at the seedling stage

a wide range of medicinal plant parts that possess varied medicinal properties are used for extracts as raw drugs. in this study, the ethanolic extract obtained from aerial parts of fennel (foeniculum vulgare mill.) seedlings was evaluated in vitro to examine their antimicrobial activity against four gram-negative and three gram-positive bacteria and two fungi. aerial parts of one-month-old seedlings were air dried and powdered. each powdered sample (20 g) was extracted with 200 ml ethanol (96%) using a shaking water bath for 24 h at room temperature. the solvent was removed under vacuum at 40°c using a rotary vacuum evaporator. the antimicrobial effect of the aerial part of fennel seedlings was tested by the disc diffusion method. the experiment was a randomized complete block with three replicates for each sample. fennel seedling extract had no inhibitory effect against gram-positive bacteria and fungi, but had a weak effect against gram-negative bacteria.