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Abstract
Vegetables and fruits are mutually exclusive in Ethiopia. The aim of this study was to assess the extent of bacterial contamination of vegetables and to evaluate the quality of irrigation water released from Dashen brewery factory in Gondar town, Ethiopia. A total of 36 vegetable samples, for the three vegetables (cabbage, lettuce, spinach),and irrigation water samples were collected from three different irrigation sites and analyzed for their bacteriological contaminants following standard procedures. Irrigations water and vegetable samples were analysed quantitatively for the determination of total coliforms, E.coli, and S. aures. All of the samples of lettuce analyzed were positive for coliforms (100%) and all the samples of cabbage analysed were positive for E.coli (100%). All the vegetables sampled in this study were contaminated with E.coli and total coliforms. The microbial load of vegetables range from 0.00 a to 1.6×108±8.8b CFU/g. Relatively the highest level of contamination of total coliform, and E. coli were recorded on lettuce. As we observed from the data, there was a highly significant difference (p<0.05) in the mean counts amongst the vegetables with respect to each microbial group. Among the vegetable samples the mean counts of cabbage was significantly ( p<0.05) greater than other vegetables with respect to E.coli (1.6 × 108 ± 8.8b) CFU/g. Similarly the mean counts of lettuce was significantly (p<0.05) greater than other vegetables with respect to total coliforms (4.1 × 106 ± 0.8c) CFU/g. The mean count of total coliform in wastewater was (3.1 × 104 ± 0.7a) CFU/100ml and the mean count of E.coli was (6.4 × 106 ± 0.8a) CFU/100ml.The mean counts of each microbial group were higher than WHO recommended limit of 3 log CFU/100 ml. In this study has been considered the load contamination on fresh vegetables and also safety irrigated with waste water released from brewery plant