Study of microbial population in date fruit cultivars of Estamaran, Zahedi, Shahani, Kabkab, Mordarsang, Mazafati and Halileh

Studying the microbiota of food materials is important from sanitary, spoilage and technological perspectives. Due to manual harvesting, grading and packaging of date fruit (Phoenix dactylifera L.), it's not surprising to find bacteria of human origin in date fruit products. On the other hand, microbes present in date palm, especially high moisture content fruits, could produce lactic acid and acetic acid and make the fruit sour, so this kind of microbes potentially could be useful especially in food fermentation and vinegar production. In this project, seven varieties of date fruits were examined chemically and microbiologically. Total solid and acidity of dates were between 72% to 86% and 0.06% to 0.78% respectively. Isolated bacteria were identified by 16S rDNA amplification and restriction analysis (ARDRA), sequencing and 16S rRNA gene comparison. The results show Staphylococcus epidermidis, Aerococcus, Bacillus and Leuconostoc mesenteroides are the present bacteria in local date fruits.