Samples oj"&its (grapes, pomegranates, and tomatoes), and vegetables (onions, potatoes, and spinach) were collected directly from randomly selected commercial farms along the Tripoli-Zawiya major road, at the appropriate harvest seasons, during the period of May through November 1988. The objective was to determine the extent of contamination of the crops with toxic heavy metals, lead and cadmium, from trafic emissions. For the purpose of comparison, similar crops were collected, within the sameperiods,from farms in Waddy Al-Rabia, far away from any major road.lhe samples were dry-ashed, and analyzed using flameless Atomic Absorption Spectrophotorneter (AAS) .lhe statistical analyses of the experimental data showed that the major road contributed significantly (P < 0.05) to higher concentrations of lead in aLl the crops examined; and also cadmium in all the crops except in potatoes. Vegetable crops were found to have higher contents of these two metals than the fruits. Substantial amounts of these metals could be removed by washing the samples with triple distilled water.

The concentrations of organochlorine insecticides DDT (Dichloro diphenyl trichloro ethane) and Heptachlor were investigated to estimate the current status of insecticides used in dry fish in different seasons and different species. Six most popular species of dry fishes namely Bombay duck (Loittya), Ribbon fish (Chhuri), Shrimp (Chingri), Hilsha shed (Ilish), Chinese pomfret (Rupchanda) and Indian salmon (Lakhua) were collected from Asadgonj (whole sell market for dry fish) of Chittagong, Bangladesh at different seasons, six samples at winter season (December) and six same samples at rainy season (July). The range of DDT concentration at winter was found 3.6 ug kg-1 to 250.8 ug kg-1 and at rainy season the range of concentration was found 11.1 ug kg-1 to 1107.4 ug kg-1. The range of Heptachlor concentration at winter was found 0.4 ug kg-1 to 2.5 ug kg-1 and at rainy season was found 1.1 ug kg-1 to 37.8 ug kg-1. The concentrations of DDT and Heptachlor were much higher in the samples of rainy season than the same samples of the winter.

No abstract

Raw peanut kernel samples were collected from 13 areas of Bangladesh for determination of mycoflora and mycotoxin. Fungi associated with the tested samples throughout the investigation were Aspergillus flavus, A. niger, Aspergillus sp. (1), Aspergillus sp. (2), Penicillium sp., Fusarium sp., Rhizopus sp. and Curvularia sp. A. flavus was the most common fungus followed by A. niger. Colonies of fungi were found to form 79.81 to 98.10% of raw peanut kernels. Out of the 13 samples, eight were found to be contaminated with 11.91 to 182.6 ppb of total aflatoxins and five samples were free from aflatoxins.