A Study of Pathogenic Fungi Causing Post Harvest Losses of Pineapple Sold at Wudil and Yan Lemo Markets of Kano State

Abstract

This research was conducted to determine the fungal pathogens responsible for post harvest losses of pineapple sold at Wudil and Yen lemo markets. Two samples of pineapples were purchased twice a week from both Wudil and Yanlemo markets for four months. The samples were investigated for the presence of fungal pathogen using standard microbiological methods. The methods involve mounting small portion of pineapple in the plate containing Potato dextrose agar to isolate the fungi. Three fungal pathogens belonging to Aspergillus species were isolated, and Aspergillus niger had the highest frequency of occurrence of (50%). Followed by A. flavus with (27%). The A. fumigatus had the lowest frequency of occurrence of (23%). The differences between the fungal isolates recorded were significantly different (P<0.05) between the two markets, where higher fungal isolates were recorded at Yanlemo market 159 (40.6%) and Wudil 38 (9.71%). The study showed that the post harvest losses of pine apple in the two markets are attributed to fungal infection. Therefore, safe guarding the two markets from debris and dumps of rotten fruits and vegetable may assist in reducing fungal inoculums in the two markets.

Effect of different plant extracts and their antimicrobial properties against Penicillium expansum and shelf life of apple

“…Unfortunately, fruits are more perishable in nature during their postharvest days and fungal infection leads to loss of fifty percent of total production in many countries (LiDestri et al, 2016) [21] . India has enormous capacity for the production of various kinds fruits and also their export (Yahaya et al, 2019) [29] . The fruits that are consumed and exported on large scale includes apple, grapes and orange.…”