Quality Assessment of Bread Sold in Gombi Local Government Area, Adamawa State, Nigeria

The moisture, ash, crude fiber composition, vitamin (B2, B6 and B12) and mineral (Na, K, Ca Mg, Pb, Cd, Mn)contents as well as Sensory properties (color, taste, odour and texture)of ten brands of bread sold in Gombi Local Government Area, Adamawa State, Nigeria were determined using standard methods . Fresh loaves of ten most popular brands of bread namely:Trustee, Destiny, Ziranza, Royal and Zango, were randomly collected. Five of these brands were purchased from bakeries (coded: Aa –Ea), while others of the same brands were purchased from different points of sale (coded: Ab-Eb) within Gombi town. The results of the investigation revealed that Cd, Pb and potassium bromate were not detected in all the samples. Potassium and sodium were predominant among all the tested samples. The moisture, ash and crude fiber contents ranged from (20.00 to 34.49% and 13.96 to 19.49%), (0.49 to 1.95% and 0.50 to 2.49%), and (10.91 to 33.13 and 28.32 to 47.30%) of samples from bakeries and points of sales, respectively.  Vitamins B2, B6 and B12 were non-significant differences (p>0.05) in the vitamin content among the bread samples. The concentrations of all the parameters studied were all within the standard specification given by Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) except crude fiber that is higher. This study showed that the bread brands produced in Gombi town could be nutritious, free from pollutants and suitable for human consumption. Keywords: Bread, Gombi, proximate composition, mineral contents, and vitamins DOI: 10.7176/FSQM/85-07 Publication date:March 31st 201

Microbial interactions in tomato solanum iycopersicum for health, growth, and pathogen defence

PhD ThesisSolanum lycopersicum is an important vegetable high in vitamin A and C and minerals such as phosphorus, iron and high in lycopene and beta-carotene. It is considered the favourite in the food processing and cosmetics industries. S. lycopersicum current global production is concentrated in the United States of America, China, and India. The production of S. lycopersicum depends on the application of chemical fertiliser; however, ecological damages caused by chemical fertiliser far outweigh its benefits. Thus, there is a need to initiate and adopt eco-friendly cultivation of S. lycopersicum using vertically transmitted endophytes. In this study, different strains of vertically transmitted endophytic bacteria were isolated from eight different cultivars of S. lycopersicum. The findings show that vertically transmitted endophytes are host specific and display various phenotypes that produce diverse metabolites with different concentrations. It also demonstrated that treated S. lycopersicum under fertilised microbial communities performed significantly better than those under the manure microbial community, untreated microbial community, and the control tank. The finding also shows that vertically transmitted endophytes in the S. lycopersicum failed to stimulate interaction between S. lycopersicum and its surrounding soil microbial communities, which promotes plant growth, increase chlorophyll content, increase fresh and dried biomass of the plant. Our result further demonstrated no significant difference when the isolated vertically transmitted endophytes Bb-B-1 was inoculated on S. lycopersicum under the optimum nutrient condition and deprived nutrient condition. Finally, the study demonstrates that microbial communities from fertilised treated soil, manure treated soil, and untreated microbial communities are not involved in inducing or suppressing Auxin, LelRT1, FER, FROS2 and LeNRT2;3 genes in S. lycopersicum. It further shows that the S. lycopersicum vertically transmitted endophytes are not involved in regulating these genes. Whilst no significant result to demonstrate the possible role of vertically transmitted endophytes the study demonstrated that S. lycopersicum vertically transmitted endophytes are host specific and display various phenotypes that produce diverse metabolites with different concentrations. Further investigation is required to focus on the isolated vertically transmitted endophytes precisely to understand their possible roles in the plant host. Additional studies investigating the role of different microbial communities on the host plant required more time to monitor the suitable duration needed by the microbial communities to be established in the new environment.PTDF Nigeri