Judul: Pengaruh Kadar Air Dan Metode Penyimpanan Tongkol  Jagung (Zea Mays, L.) Terhadap Pertumbuhan Aspergillus Flavus  Dan Pembentukan Aflatoksin
Abstrak: Corn is one of agricultural commodity that has been cultivated in high quantity in Indonesia. Until now, the utilization of corn has been limited to the seed, which used as feeds and foods. It caused by product, in the form of corncob has been reach 46% from all corn varieties (Sapoetra, 1994), so it has been started to expand the using of corncob to be a more useful product. One alternative of the corncob utilization is xilosa, as the raw material in xilitol production. Xilitol has been used on candy and sweetener product. Corn is agricultural commodity which susceptible to fungal infection, so it was need right condition during storage. A. flavus is one of mold that often contaminate corn. This fungy can produce aflatoxin, a toxin which was dangerous for human and animals health, if they eat the product which contaminated of aflatoxin. In low concentrations (not more than 20 ppb), aflatoxin cause liver and kidney cancer, while in high concentration (20 ppb or more), aflatoxin can cause death. Maximum aflatoxin concentration that was permitted to be consumed according to Food and Drug Administration, USA was no more than 20 ppb. The goal of this research were to get the best water content and the right storage method which can inhibite A. flavus growth and aflatoxin formation. Water content that applied in this research were 11%, 15% and 19%, while the storage method that used were ruged and packed use gunny sack. The duration of storage was 30 days with three times sampling, that were 0 day, 15 day and 30 day. The corn variety that used was Bisma. This research consist of two steps. First was preparation of raw material that include corncob characterizations and conditioning of water content. Corncob characterizations consist of carbohydrate, protein, fat, crude fiber, ash and water content, while conditioning of water content was done with moisting and drying the corncob to get the water content at 11%, 15% and 19%. In main research the measured parameters were water content, A. flavus population and aflatoxin concentration. The analyze of statistic method that used in this research were Completely Randomize Design with two factors and Completely Randomize Design with three factors. Completely Randomize Design with two factors was used to analyze water content data, while Completely Randomize Design with three factors was used to analyze A. flavus population data. The results of corncob characterizations were : water content 11.80±0.06%, ash content 1.59±0.010%, protein content 1.62±0.07%, crude fiber content 34.02±0.09, carbohydrate (by diff.) 95.65±0.01 and fat content 1.14±0.04%. In main research, the corncob water content was decrease during storage. The highest decrease of water content was occured on the storage with ruged method and 19% water content, while the lowest decrease was occured on the corncob which was packed use gunny sack and 11% water content. The storage method that gave the lowest population of A. flavus was the corncob which was packed use gunny sack and 11% water content. From each storage method, the lowest population of A. flavus was obtained on 11% water content and the
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