Microbial Population on Seeds: The sodium metabisulfite
concentration and incubation were 0.2 M for 5 min, 0.02 M for
20 min and 0.002 M for 20 min, while for sodium sulfite were
0.2 M for 5 min, 0.02 M for 10 min and 0.002 M for 20 min.
Sterilized water was used as control. The infected seeds were
randomly selected and spread on wet paper towels on the plastic
rack and then placed in the chamber. Two grams of seeds were
mixed with 18 ml of 0.1% peptone water for 2 min with
agitation (260 rpm). 1 ml of mixture was directly diluted with
sterile 0.1% peptone water and processed as described above.
The plates were incubated in chamber at 28ºC for 3 days.