Abstract:
Onion (Allium cepa L) is one type of vegetables which is grown world-wide and form an
important part of many diets. But this crop is prone to postharvest loss due to spoilage
bacteria. Even though different studies have been done to maximize the onion production in
Bahir Dar, postharvest loss of onion was not studied for the presence of microorganism
causative agents. Study was aimed of isolation and characterization of onion associated
spoilage bacteria from spoiled onions. The experimental study design was used and the study
was conducted at Bahir Dar University (BDU), Microbiology laboratory from February to
May, 2018. The onion sample were purchased, put in to sterile polyethylene bag and
transported in to BDU, microbiology laboratory and processed after 3 hours. Enumeration of
total viable count and isolation of spoilage bacteria, morphological and biochemical
characterization of the obtained bacteria were done to isolate and characterize onion
associated bacteria. Confirmatory test was carried out to test whether the isolated bacteria are
spoilage causative agent or not by re inoculating the bacteria in to healthy onion samples. The
mean total viable count was log 8.1CFU/ml. A total of nine bacteria were recovered from
spoiled onion samples and identified as Bacillus spp. (8.6%), Staphylococcus spp. (9.5%), two
Serratia spp, (11.9%), Pseudomonas spp. (21.9%), Enterobacter spp. (16.7%), Erwinia spp.
(13.3%), Enterococcus spp. (6.2%) and Micrococcus spp. (11.9%). All of the isolated bacteria
were confirmed as onion spoilage causative agent. In general it can be concluded that onion
can harbor different spoilage causing bacteria and also can be conclude that gram negative
bacteria are higher in count than gram positive bacteria in spoiled onion.
Keywords: Onion (Allium cepa), spoilage bacteria, postharvest loss