Survey of Contamination Mycoflora of Consumed Rice in Mazandaran, in 2009

Background and Rice is a main food in Ïran particularly in the northern provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran and used for a variety of food and nonfood products. Ït is also one of the important cereals which favours mycotoxin production. This study was conducted to determine the contaminant mycoflora of Rice grains in Mazandaran province, in order to use this information to consider possible mycotoxin occurrence in this area. Ône hundred different rice bran samples intended for human consumption were collected from 100 various rice farmers of 15 districts zones of Mazandaran province, during the months of Âugust to November 2009. These locations were selected based on statistic random. For any samples, 24 surface sterilized grains by 1% sodium hypochlorite broke by sterile scalpel then were plated (12 per plate) on potato dextrose agar (PDÂ) medium containing chloramphenicol. The contamination of all polished rice sampled in 2009 was 93%. Fungi genus detected, in order of frequency from the internal tissues of rice samples, were Âspergillus (43.96%), Çladosporium (13.96%0), Âlternaria (10.21%), Rhodotorula (7.50%) and Penicillium (4.79%). The most significant rates of Âspergillus spp. Çontamination in rice samples were observed in the Â. flavus species (57.9%).Çonclusion: The presence of toxicogenic fungi such, Âspergillus sp, Âlternaria sp, Penicillium sp. in rice can produce mycotoxins and has a strong influence on the ultimate quality of rice and a strong association in man or animal disorders. Despite such studies, there has been no try to study fungal contamination in totality in rice kernel across the country in different ecosystems. Ït is suggested that all the consuming rice grains screened for fungal contamination and mycotoxins before utilization as human food and animal feed