In US states where marijuana has been legalized, these regulations include the determination of total yeast and mold count (TYMC) in all consumer facing products to prevent health problems (Cescon et al., 2008 Verweij et al., 2000). Quality control testing in the food and marijuana industries is a requirement that involves cell enumeration of bacteria and fungi to comply with state and federal regulations. The automated counting method could be used to quickly count numbers that are as high as 400 CFUs, reducing time of analysis with improved documentation because the images and the electronic colony counts can be saved on a computer or cloud for long term storage and data access. The statistical differences of the other three samples were observed to be random and caused by user errors.
ITCN IMAGEJ MANUAL
In twelve out of fifteen Petrifilms, the average count of the automated method was statistically similar to the manual counts. All counts from the automated ImageJ procedure were within 12% of those obtained manually. Fifteen images of Petrifilms showing various concentrations of colonies were studied by fifteen users at two institutions using both the automated and manual counting methods. The performance of this colony counting method was demonstrated by comparing manual and automated counts from marijuana flower samples containing spikes of Candida albicans as well as samples that tested positive for the presence of yeast and mold. Therefore, an automated counting method utilizing ImageJ has been developed for CFU analysis of TYMC on Petrifilms.
These measurements are usually obtained by manually counting colonies on petri-dishes or 3 M™ Petrifilms™, which is a time consuming and user subjective process. The Code of Colorado Regulations, 1 CCR 212–1, considers a passing result when a 1 g sample contains <10 4 colony forming units (CFU) for the total yeast and mold count (TYMC). Currently, in the state of Colorado and all other states within the United States of America with legalized marijuana programs, testing is required for bacteria, yeast, and mold on marijuana products.