• Research in Plant Disease
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.155-163
• /
• 2021

Dried red peppers are frequently contaminated with mycotoxins during storage. To determine the effect of storage environments on fungal occurrence and subsequent mycotoxin accumulation in dried red peppers, we monitored red pepper powder and whole fruit samples for fungal occurrence under various temperatures and relative humidity (RH) conditions during 340 days. Fungal occurrences fluctuated in both pepper forms throughout the storage but they were higher in pepper powder than whole one, higher under low temperatures (-20℃, 0℃, or 4℃) than others (10℃, 25℃, or 30℃), and higher under RH 93% than RH 51% and 69% in both peppers. The samples exhibiting high fungal occurrences were associated mainly with dominant species such as Aspergillussydowii, Penicillium solitum, P. roqueforti, P. polonicum, or P. chrysogenum. Mycotoxigenic species, including A. flavus, A. ochraceus, A. westerdijkiae, A. tubingensis, and P. citrinum, were also detected throughout the samples. Although mycotoxins were not detected in the samples, mycotoxigenic potential of A. flavus, A. ochraceus, and A. westerdijkiae isolates were confirmed. These results show that low temperatures (-20℃, 0℃, or 4℃) and/or high surrounding RH (>93%) are not safe environments for storage of dried red peppers as fungal growth can occur under these conditions.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.240-243
• /
• 2001

Fresh pasta was packaged in a modified atmosphere of 22% $CO_2$/78% $N_2$ and compared with a control air package for its quality changes during storage at 8$^{\circ}C$. The modified atmosphere packaging suppressed the microbial growth of total aerobic bacteria and yeasts/molds with a concomitant reduction in the rates of physical and chemical quality changes, and thus successfully extended the shelf life of fresh packs from 20 days of air packs to 40 days based on microbial criterion of 10$^{6}$ cfu/g. The shelf life extension was greater when the initial microbial quality of the product was better.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
• /
• v.33 no.5
• /
• pp.499-507
• /
• 2017

In an attempt to develop a biological control agent against mycotoxigenic Fusarium species, we isolated Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain DA12 from soil and explored its antimicrobial activities. DA12 was active against the growth of mycotoxigenic F. asiaticum, F. graminearum, F. proliferatum, and F. verticillioides both in vitro and in planta (maize). Further screening using dual culture extended the activity range of strain DA12 against other fungal pathogens including Botrytis cinerea, Colletotrichum coccodes, Endothia parasitica, Fusarium oxysporum, Raffaelea quercus-mongolicae, and Rhizoctonia solani. The butanol extract of the culture filtrate of B. amyloliquefaciens DA12 highly inhibited the germination of F. graminearum macroconidia with inhibition rate 83% at a concentration of $31.3{\mu}g/ml$ and 100% at a concentration of $250{\mu}g/ml$. The antifungal metabolite from the butanol extract was identified as iturin A by thin layer chromatography-bioautography. In addition, volatile organic compounds produced by DA12 were able to inhibit mycelial growth of various phytopathogenic fungi. The volatile compounds were identified as 2-heptanone, 5-methyl heptanone and 6-methyl heptanone by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. These results indicate that the antagonistic activity of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens DA12 was attributable to iturin A and volatile heptanones, and the strain could be used as a biocontrol agent to reduce the development of Fusarium diseases and mycotoxin contamination of crops.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.40 no.1
• /
• pp.49-59
• /
• 2021

BACKGROUND: Soil salinity causes reduction of crop productivity. Rhizosphere microbes have metabolic capabilities and ability to adaptation of plants to biotic and abiotic stresses. Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) could play a role as elicitors for inducing tolerance to stresses in plants by affecting resident microorganism in soil. This study was conducted to demonstrate the effect of selected strains on rhizosphere microbial community under salinity stress. METHODS AND RESULTS: The experiments were conducted in tomato plants in pots containing field soil. Bacterial suspension was inoculated into three-week-old tomato plants, one week after inoculation, and -1,000 kPa-balanced salinity stress was imposed. The physiological and biochemical attributes of plant under salt stress were monitored by evaluating pigment, malondialdehyde (MDA), proline, soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and ion concentrations. To demonstrate the effect of selected Bacillus strains on rhizosphere microbial community, soil microbial diversity and abundance were evaluated with Illumina MiSeq sequencing, and primer sets of 341F/805R and ITS3/ITS4 were used for bacterial and fungal communities, respectively. As a result, when the bacterial strains were inoculated and then salinity stress was imposed, the inoculation decreases the stress susceptibility including reduction in lipid peroxidation, enhanced pigmentation and proline accumulation which subsequently resulted in better plant growth. However, bacterial inoculations did not affect diversity (observed OTUs, ACE, Chao1 and Shannon) and structure (principle coordinate analysis) of microbial communities under salinity stress. Furthermore, relative abundance in microbial communities had no significant difference between bacterial treated- and untreated-soils under salinity stress. CONCLUSION: Inoculation of Bacillus strains could affect plant responses and soil pH of tomato plants under salinity stress, whereas microbial diversity and abundance had no significant difference by the bacterial treatments. These findings demonstrated that Bacillus strains could alleviate plant's salinity damages by regulating pigments, proline, and MDA contents without significant changes of microbial community in tomato plants, and can be used as effective biostimulators against salinity stress for sustainable agriculture.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.6
• /
• pp.824-829
• /
• 2000

A five wk feeding experiment was conducted with day-old one thousand broiler chicks (Arbor Acres) to determine the effects of microbial phytase (Natuphos$^{(R)}$) supplemented to low nonphytate P (NPP) corn-soy diets. Five pens of 50 mixed sex birds each were randomly assigned to each of the four dietary treatments: T1, control diet containing normal NPP level; T2, T1-0.1% NPP+600 U of phytase/kg diet; T3, T1 - 0.2% NPP+600 U of phytase/kg diet; and T4, T1 - 0.3% NPP+600 U of phytase/kg diet. T1, T2, and T3 showed similar growth rate, feed intake, and feed efficiency, indicating that NPP level in broiler diets could be reduced by approximately 0.2% by the microbial phytase supplementation. But T4 showed significantly (p<0.05) lower weight gain than others. The phytase supplementation improved P availability resulting in low P excretion. Weight and girth of metatarsal bone were increased by phytase supplementation at low NPP diet treatments but ash contents were not significantly different. It can be concluded that NPP level of corn-soy broiler diets can be safely lowered by approximately 0.2 % by supplementing 600 U of microbial phytase/kg diet. With the adjusted level of NPP and phytase supplementation, P excretion could be reduced by 50%.

• Research in Plant Disease
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.364-368
• /
• 2011

Gray mold caused by Botrytis cinerea was found on a carrot seedling in a greenhouse and a field at Daegwallryeong, Gangwon Province in 2007-2009. Symptoms included irregular, brown, blight, or chlorotic halo on leaves and petioles of the carrots. Fungal conidia were globose to subglobose or ellipsoid, hyaline or pale brown, nonseptate, one celled, $7.2-18.2{\times}4.5-11\;{\mu}m$ ($12.1{\times}8.3\;{\mu}m$) in size, and were formed on botryose heads. B. cinerea colonies were hyaline on PDA, and then turned gray and later changed dark gray or brown when spores appeared. The fungal growth stopped at $35^{\circ}C$, temperature range for proper growth was $15-25^{\circ}C$ on MEA and PDA. Carrots inoculated with $1{\times}10^5$ ml conidial suspension were incubated in a moist chamber at $25{\pm}1^{\circ}C$ for pathogenicity testing. Symptoms included irregular, brown, water-soaked rot on carrot roots and irregular, pale brown or dark brown, water-soaked rot on leaves. Symptoms were similar to the original symptoms under natural conditions. The pathogen was reisolated from diseased leaves, sliced roots, and whole roots after inoculation. As a result, this is the first report of carrot gray mold caused by B. cinerea in Korea.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.29 no.12
• /
• pp.1957-1968
• /
• 2019

Tetraselmis is a green algal genus, some of whose species are important in aquaculture as well as biotechnology. In algal culture, fluorescent lamps, traditional light source for culturing algae, are now being replaced by a cost-effective light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In this study, we investigated the effect of LED light of different wavelengths (white, red, yellow, and blue) on the growth of Tetraselmis suecica and its associated microbial community structures using the next-generation sequencing (NGS). The fastest growth rate of T. suecica was shown in the red light, whereas the slowest was in yellow. The highest OTUs (3426) were identified on day 0, whereas the lowest ones (308) were found on day 15 under red light. The top 100 OTUs associated with day 0 and day 5 cultures of T. suecica under the red and yellow LED were compared. Only 26 OTUs were commonly identified among four samples. The highest numbers of unique OTUs were identified at day 0, indicating the high degree of initial microbial diversity of the T. suecica inoculum. The red light-unique OTUs occupied 34.98%, whereas the yellow-specific OTUs accounted for only 2.2%. This result suggested a higher degree of interaction in T. suecica culture under the red light, where stronger photosynthesis occurs. Apparently, the microbial community associated with T. suecica related to the oxygen produced by algal photosynthesis. This result may expand our knowledge about the algae-bacteria consortia, which would be useful for various biotechnological applications including wastewater treatment, bioremediation, and sustainable aquaculture.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.10
• /
• pp.1399-1406
• /
• 2000

A continuous culture study was conducted to determine the impact of ruminal degradable soy protein (S-RDP) level and dilution rate (D) on growth of ruminal non-structural carbohydrate-fermenting microbes. Corn starch, urea and isolated soy protein (ISP) were used to formulate three diets with S-RDP levels of 0, 35 and 70% of total dietary CP. Two Ds were 0.03 and $0.06h^{-1}$ of the fermenter volume in a single-effluent continuous culture system. As S-RDP levels increased, digestibilities of dietary dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM) and crude protein (CP) linearly (p=0.001) decreased, whereas digestion of dietary starch linearly (p=0.001) increased. Increasing D from 0.03 to $0.06h^{-1}$ resulted in decreased digestibilities of dietary DM and OM, but had no effect on digestibilities of dietary starch (p=0.77) and CP (p=0.103). Fermenter pH, the concentration of volatile fatty acids (VFA) and daily VFA production were unaffected (p=0.159-0.517) by S-RDP levels. Molar percentages of acetate, propionate and butyrate were greatly affected by S-RDP levels (p=0.016-0.091), but unaffected by D (p=0.331-0.442). With increasing S-RDP levels and D, daily bacterial counts, daily microbial N production (DMNP) and microbial efficiency (MOEFF; grams of microbial N produced per kilogram of OM truly digested) were enhanced (p=0.001). The increased microbial efficiency with increasing S-RDP levels is probably the result of peptides or amino acids that served as a stimulus for optimal protein synthesis. The quantity of ruminal degradable protein from soy proteins required for optimum protein synthesis of non-structural carbohydrate-fermenting microbes appears to be equivalent to 9.5% of dietary fermented OM.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.26 no.7
• /
• pp.1303-1310
• /
• 2016

Although many studies on the effects of genetically modified (GM) crops on soil microorganisms have been carried out over the past decades, they have provided contradictory information, even for the same GM crop, owing to the diversity of the soil environments in which they were conducted. This inconsistency in results suggests that the effects of GM crops on soil microorganisms should be considered from many aspects. In this study, we investigated the effects of the GM drought-tolerant rice MSRB2-Bar-8, which expresses the CaMSRB2 gene, on soil microorganisms based on the culture-dependent and culture-independent methods. To this end, rhizosphere soils of GM and non-GM (IM) rice were analyzed for soil chemistry, population densities of soil microorganisms, and microbial community structure (using pyrosequencing technology) at three growth stages (seedling, tillering, and maturity). There was no significant difference in the soil chemistry between GM and non-GM rice. The microbial densities of the GM soils were found to be within the range of those of the non-GM rice. In the pyrosequencing analyses, Proteobacteria and Chloroflexi were dominant at the seedling stage, while Chloroflexi showed dominance over Proteobacteria at the maturity stage in both the GM and non-GM soils. An UPGMA dendrogram showed that the soil microbial communities were clustered by growth stage. Taken together, the results from this study suggest that the effects of MSRB2-Bar-8 cultivation on soil microorganisms are not significant.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
• /
• v.26 no.4
• /
• pp.340-345
• /
• 2010

Two similar microbial fungicides (termed as MA and MB) developed in a Korean biopesticide company were analyzed and compared each other in their biocontrol activities against the phytophthora blight of chili pepper caused by Phytophthora capsici. MA and MB contained the microbe Paenibacillus polymyxa and Bacillus subtilis, respectively, with concentrations over those posted on the microbial products. In comparison of the isolated microbes (termed as MAP from MA and MBB from MB) in the antagonistic activities against P. capsici was effective, prominently against zoospore germination, while MBB only significantly inhibited the mycelia growth of the pathogen. Some effectiveness of MAP and MBB was noted in the inhibition of zoosporangium formation and zoospore release from zoosporangia; however, no such large difference between MAP and MBB was noted. In a pot experiment, MA reduced the severity of the phytophthora blight more than MB, suggesting that the disease control efficacy would be more attributable to the inhibition of zoospore germination than mycelia growth of P. capsici. These results also suggest that the similar microbes MA and MB targeting different points in the life cycle of the pathogen differ in the disease control efficacies. Therefore, to develop microbial fungicides it is required to examine the targeting points in the pathogen's life cycle as well as the action mode of antagonistic microorganisms.