evaluation of aspergillus contamination of poultry diets in some provinces of iran

determining the prevalence of saprophyte fungi in agricultural products and processed foods used in the poultry diet is important. these studies lead to an overall control plan and prevention of fungal infection in different stages of harvesting, transportation and storage. most of aspergillus species grow at ambient temperature. some species can produce toxins in the diet of birds; thus, species identification is necessary to evaluate the mycotoxins contamination. for this purpose, 49 samples of poultry diets, including cannabis, purslane, corn, sorghum, cotton, corn, italian millet, wheat, mixed grains, rice bran, starter, growth and finisher were collected from yazd, lorestan, mazandaran, east azarbaijan, west azarbaijan, ardabil, khorasan razavi, fars and kerman provinces. aspergillus contamination was investigated using the direct culture on potato dextrose agar, moist sterile filter paper and serial dilutiom methods.appoximately,175 isolates of the aspergillus were isolated. based on morphological characteristics, a. japonicus, a. tubingensis, a. flavus, a. fumigatus, a. tamarii, a. ochraceus, a. parasiticus and a. terreus wereidentified. the wet filter paper method had higher efficiency in recovery and isolation of aspergillus species. aspergillus flavus was determined as the dominant species and rafsanjan as the most contaminated region.