Survival of in Manure-Amended Soils Is Affected by Spatiotemporal, Agricultural, and Weather Factors in the Mid-Atlantic United States.

Untreated biological soil amendments of animal origin (BSAAO), such as manure, are commonly used to fertilize soils for growing fruit and vegetable crops and can contain enteric bacterial foodborne pathogens. Little is known about the comparative longitudinal survival of pathogens in agricultural fields containing different types of BSAAO, and field data may be useful to determine intervals between manure application and harvest of produce intended for human consumption to minimize foodborne illness. This study generated 324 survival profiles from 12 different field trials at three different sites (UMES, PA, and BARC) in the Mid-Atlantic United States from 2011 to 2015 of inoculated nonpathogenic (gEc) and attenuated O157 (attO157) in soils which were unamended (UN) or amended with untreated poultry litter (PL), horse manure (HM), or dairy manure solids (DMS) or liquids (DML).

Comparison of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Composting Council microbial detection methods in finished compost and regrowth potential of Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli O157:H7 in finished compost.

Bacterial pathogens may survive and regrow in finished compost due to incomplete thermal inactivation during or recontamination after composting. Twenty-nine finished composts were obtained from 19 U.S.