Chitosan–cinnamon beads enhance suppressive activity against Rhizoctonia solani and Meloidogyne incognita in vitro

• Chitosan beads combined with cinnamon showed a high antifungal activity on R. solani.
• CCP/CCE beads showed a strong inhibition of egg hatching of M. incognita.
• CCE beads treatment had a high nematicidal activity against juveniles of M. incognita.

A novel chitosan–cinnamon bead carrier was prepared in this study. Chitosan was mixed with cinnamon powder (CP) and cinnamon extract (CE) to obtain chitosan–cinnamon powder (CCP) beads and chitosan–cinnamon extracted (CCE) beads, respectively. The potential antifungal and nematicidal activities of CCP and CCE were investigated against Rhizoctonia solani and Meloidogyne incognita in vitro. Relative antifungal activity of the CCP (5% CP) bead-treated R. solani was 30.9 and 23.9% after 1 and 2 day incubations, respectively. Relative antifungal activity of the CCE (0.5% CE) bead-treated R. solani was 4.3, 3.0 and 4.2% after 1, 2 and 3 days of incubation. Inhibition of hatch by CCP beads with CP of 5% was 78.8%. Inhibition of hatch by CCE beads with CE of 0.5% was 82.0%. J2 mortality following the CCP (5% CP) and CCE (0.5% CE) bead treatments was 85.0 and 95.8%, respectively against M. incognita after 48 h incubations.