Abstract
Studies was carried out on Isolation and Identification of pathogenic fungi in 180 date fruits (Phoenix dactylifera, Linn.), sampled from the three major Markets in Gombe Metropolis, Gombe, Nigeria between April and June 2018. The samples were cut into 3 mm pieces on a clean and sterilized tile with the aid of sterilized razor blade, surface-sterilized in 1% hypochlorite for 5 minutes, placed on blotter paper and incubated at room temperature for 5 days. Pure cultures of the resulting fungi were obtained from subcultures on Potato Dextrose Agar of the primary plates. These were identified morphologically and microscopically in accordance with standard procedures. The investigation showed that the most dominant isolated fungi were Motierella alpina (38.8%) and Mucor sp. (25%), followed by Aspergillus niger. (13, 8%), Apophysomyces variabilis (11.1%), Neosartorya pseudofischer. (5.5%) and Rhizopus stolonifer. (5.5%) respectively. Of all the samples, Dates from Old Market were heavily infested. Aspergillus niger appeared to be the most toxigenic fungi recovered from the dates. Also, it has been observed that most of the fungi isolated from dates are known to produce harmful mycotoxins that could pose health risk to consumers. It was concluded that variety (Dan Mali) should be consumed because it had least percentage of fungal infestation as reported in the study. Contaminated dates should be sorted and eliminated to avoid re- infection and washing the dates with clean water prior to consumption should be strongly encouraged by consumers to avoid infection and thus, have a healthy community, while farmers and hawkers should ensure proper handling during or after harvesting, processing, storage or transition. Therefore, in-depth study should be conducted on mycotoxins associated with dates.
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