Interactions Between Newport, spp., and Melon Cultivars.

Melons are perishable fruit of high food safety risk, grown in contact with soil and soil-borne organisms. To assess whether food safety risk could be augmented by the presence of soil-borne fungi, this study investigated the relationship between spp. that were isolated from the surface of melon and the foodborne pathogen . In four repeated trials, rind discs from cultivars, Arava, Athena, Dulce Nectar, Jaune de Canaries, and Sivan fruit, grown in the field and in high tunnels in Maryland were inoculated separately with isolates, . , . , . , and , with no inoculation serving as a control and incubated at 25°C. Newport was inoculated onto melon discs 4 d post inoculation and recovered 24 h later. Melon cultivar impacted the retrieval of Newport. In all four replicated experiments, one or more of the netted varieties, Arava, Athena, and Sivan, yielded higher Newport counts than one or both smooth-rind melons, Jaune de Canaries and Dulce Nectar ( < 0.05). inoculation did not have a marked impact on retrieval. The average count recovered was 5.0 log colony-forming unit (CFU)/mL for both -inoculated and uninoculated melons. However, in one trial, Newport counts recovered from inoculated melons were higher than all other treatments (8.6 log CFU/mL;  < 0.001), due to high levels of recovered from Jaune de Canaries compared with other experiments. The food safety risk of melon did not appear to be enhanced by postharvest colonization with saprophytic spp. However, melons with netted rinds appeared to favor colonization compared with smooth melons. Choice of melon cultivar may be an important consideration in reducing colonization risk in areas where may be endemic in the environment.