Microbial Evaluation Of Palm Oil Mill Effluent On Soil

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated palm oil mill effluent in soil microorganism and also the wastewater from palm oil mill. The bacterial species were identified by morphological characteristics, pigmentation on media, microscopy, biochemical and sugar fermentation methods. This reveals the major bacterial isolates to be Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Bacillus species, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Salmonella species respectively, while the fungal species are; Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, and Penicillium species respectively. The percentage occurrence of the isolates revealed that Staphylococcus aiirues (35.0%) was the most predominant and frequently occurring isolates while among the fungal species, Aspergillus niger (46.1%) was the most predominant. The viable mean counts revealed that Site C had the highest viable bacteria count at 8.3x105cfu/g recorded for downstream soil sample, while fungal counts revealed Site B as having the highest viable fungi count at (8.7x105cfu/g) recorded for middle stream soil sample. It was observed that there was an increase in the fungal and bacterial counts as well as other microbes from the soil polluted with palm oil mill effluent in comparison with the soil without palm oil mill effluent (control sample). Among the various locations investigated for the quality of palm oil mill effluent samples (waste water), site A recorded the highest bacterial counts of 1.12 x 105(cfu/rnl), while site C had the highest fungal counts of 1.62 x 10(cfu/ml). Statistical analysis showed that there were significant differences in the microbial counts of the palm oil mill effluent soil and the palm oil mill effluent (waste water) at P 0.05.