Study of Hygienic practices of street food vendors in ... - Shiats.edu.in

Seweta Srivastava, Asha Sinhais a multipurpose plant with many attributes and considerable potential. The variousparts of Jatropha plant have many useful applications (Satheesh Kumar et al. 2009).The oil extracted from the seed can be utilized as a biodiesel feed stock and in soapproduction. During the World War II (Takeda, 1982), the Jatropha seed oil was usedas a diesel substitute.Seed storage behavior of Euphorbiaceae is generally orthodox according to Ellis etal. (1985) (one exception being Hevea). Orthodox seed storage behavior means "Maturewhole seeds not only survive considerable desiccation (to at least 5% moisture content)but their longevity in air-dry storage is increased in a predictable way by reduction inseed storage moisture content and temperature (e.g. to those values employed in longterm seed stores)" (Hong et al. 1996). Physic nut also has orthodox seeds. Two- or sixmonth- old seeds received for the provenance trials described above, were stored inunsealed plastic bags at ambient temperatures (approximately 20°C) for 5 months andgerminated on average by 62% (ranging from 19 to 79%) after having been seeded insoil. When stored for 7 years in plastic bags (not sealed) at a temperature of approximately16 o C, the seeds still showed an average germinating capacity of 47% (ranging from 0 to82%) when tested with the "between paper" method (Heller, 1991 and 1992). Whenthe seeds were analyzed for their chemical composition after 3 years of storage, theyhad moisture content of 6.2% (average of all provenances).Water activity or relative humidity and the temperature of storage were the mostimportant physical factors affecting seed quality, because they determine the moisturecontent of substrate. Safe appropriate content can prevent fungal infection and thehydrolysis of lipid; consequently the quality of seeds or grains could be maintained forlonger period (Dharmaputra et al. 2009). According to Sirisomboon et al. (2007),the moisture content of physic nut hulls (fruits) was the highest, compared to its seeds(nuts) and kernels.To obtain good quality of physic nut seeds after storage, some factors should betaken into consideration, i.e. the degree of fruit maturity, safe seed moisture content,appropriate container and storage condition, duration of storage, good viability and vigorof seeds. During storage seeds or grains could be infected by fungi, which cause adecrease in viability, discolouration, loss in weight, chemical and nutritionalchanges, heating, caking and mycotoxin contamination (Dharmaputra et al. 2009).Chelkowski (1991) reported that in many cases, fungi infecting seeds are seed-bornepathogens. They play an important role in the transmission of numerous pathogenic fungalspecies to seedlings as well as to the soil.64