Studies on possibility of using ICUMSA microbiological pour plate methods for refined sugars for enumeration of microbial populations in primary and mixed sugarcane juice

Abstract

The studies have been carried out to examine the possibility of determining the microbial densities present in sugarcane primary and mixed juice by using the existing ICUMSA pour plate methods, GS - 2/3 - 43 to 49 (1994) developed for counting different types of microorganisms in refined sugar, and also to ascertain if the microbiological growth media referred in these methods could be used as such or after some modification. The results suggest that the existing ICUMSA microbiological pour plate methods for refined sugar could be used for sugarcane juice microbiological analyses also without any major modification, though the samples would have to be suitably diluted prior to plating, say 10, 000 to ten million times, depending on the microbial cells densities present therein. Further, the growth media containing crude extracts like yeast extract, beef extract, peptone, etc. supported better microbial growth than the chemically defined ones, like Weman medium.