Influence of agronomic practices and pre-harvest conditions on the attachment and development of Listeria monocytogenes in vegetables

Abstract

Interest in fresh vegetables is on the increase due to their protective effects against several diseases. Listeria monocytogenes is a human pathogen easily found in vegetables. The purpose of this review article is to analyse the influence of the agricultural practices applied in pre-harvest, the environmental biotic and abiotic factors characterising the cultivation field, as well as the handling procedures at harvest that might greatly influence the presence and the levels of L. monocytogenes in fresh produce. This review article describes the routes of L. monocytogenes infections in relation to the agricultural practices commonly applied during vegetable cultivation. It also analyses the influence of the different cultivation systems as well as the main environmental factors and compares the effects of manual and mechanical harvest retrieving data from literature. Even though post-harvest sanitising is a common practice, fresh produce is still responsible for foodborne diseases. In the last years, the number of cases of human listeriosis is on the increase, and the consumption of fresh vegetables is being more frequently associated with these events. While still relatively rare, human listeriosis is one of the most serious food-borne diseases and continues to be one of the more lethal foodborne pathogens associated with vegetables. Seed decontamination represents an efficient operation to reduce microbial plant internalisation and diffusion. Since L. monocytogenes persists in soil for long periods, the hydroponic systems have been found to reduce its contamination of vegetables.

Microbial Contamination of Fresh Produce: What, Where, and How?

“…Microbial contamination of fresh produce has been widely reviewed in the literature (Alegbeleye, Singleton, & Sant'Ana, 2018;Berger et al, 2010;Gutierrez-Rodriguez & Adhikari, 2018;Julien-Javaux, Gérard, Campagnoli & Zuber, 2019;Miceli & Settanni, 2019;Mritunjay & Kumar, 2015). When considering the farm-to-fork chain, microbial contamination of fresh produce can occur at multiple steps (Matthews, 2013).…”

Effect of Gibberellic Acid on Growth, Yield, and Quality of Leaf Lettuce and Rocket Grown in a Floating System

“…Recently, consumers' consciousness of the importance of eating healthy foods [1][2][3][4][5] has raised notably. This is strictly related to the awareness of the consumers that an increase of vegetable intake might reduce the risk of cancers as well as many other degenerative diseases [6,7].…”

Effect of Agronomic Practices on Yield and Quality of Borage at Harvest and During Storage as Minimally-Processed Produce

“…The leaves of mulched plants were completely clean after two rinses while the leaves of the plants grown on bare soil needed one more rinse to be suitable for packaging and storage. The use of plastic mulch can give cleaner and higher quality vegetables as it separates the soil from the plants and eliminate soil splashing on leaves or fruits, especially for leafy vegetables that produce at soil level [65,67,68] The yield of fresh-cut produce was positively affected by mulching. Mulched plants supplied 33.3% of minimally-processed leaves (+46.9%) and yielded 1282.8 g of leaves m −2 , with an increase of 484.2 g m −2 compared to the non-mulched plants (+60.6%).…”

“…The scores for overall visual quality of borage accessions grown on bare soil resulted lower than those of the first experiment. This could be due to the higher precipitation amount recorded in the second year, that has probably increased the soil splashing on the leaves [88] and, consequently, the contamination of microorganisms responsible for leaf decay [65,67,68]. On the contrary, mulching may significantly reduce soil content on the leaf after harvest [88] and modify the microbial population throughout the cold storage [89,90], resulting in overall visual quality scores higher than those of bare soil samples [90] as found in this experiment.…”