Isolation And Identification of Fungi Associated with Dried Fruits of Ziziphus Spina-Christi (L.) Willd, In Dutse Jigawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

This research was carried out on the isolation and identification of fungi associated with the dried fruits of Ziziphus spina-christi (L.) Willd (Christ’s thorn). Sample fruits were collected from ten (10) mother trees in Dutse, and air dried for eight (8) weeks. The Pulps were extracted from the fruits with the aid of pestle and mortar; one (1g) of the pulp was placed in a beaker containing nine of (9mls) distilled water. The sample solution was serially diluted in this manner 10¹ 10² ---10⁶ in order to reduce fungal load in the sample. A drop of the serially diluted solution was placed on the prepared potato dextrose agar media under sterilized environment and incubated at (37⁰C) for 48 hours. The pure/axemic culture were obtained by several transfer of colony growth from PDA plates aseptically i.e. (Sub-culturing until axemic culture were obtained). Identification was done macroscopically and microscopically. Result shows that Rhizopus spp are found to have the highest percentage 8.2 (64%) of occurrence which makes it the most dominant while Aspergillus Spp, have 3.2 (25%) percentage of occurrence thus Fusarium spp had 1.4 (11%) percentage of occurrence.   Therefore., it is concluded that Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Rhizopus are associated with the dried fruits of Ziziphus spina-christi (Christ’s thorn). Aspergillus species are associated with food spoilage and can significantly impede the quality and safety of the fruits. Therefore, improved Post-Harvest Handling in form of better drying and storage practices, routine fungal contamination assessments using molecular and microscopic techniques, more so, further research should be encouraged on inhibiting mycotoxin-production capabilities of isolated fungi.