Since 1988, cucurbit crops, particularly watermelon, cantaloupe, and squash, grown in Oklahoma and Texas have experienced devastating losses from cucurbit yellow vine disease (CYVD), caused by the phloem-limited bacterium Serratia marcescens Bizio. Squash bug, Anasa tristis (De Geer), is a putative vector of the pathogen. In 2000-2001, overwintering populations of squash bug collected from DeLe...

c s t u a 1 b d f a a i 1 b Collaborative research was conducted at the USDARS Subtropical Agricultural Research Center in southrn Texas to assess the microbial control potential of eauveria bassiana and Paecilomyces fumosoroseus gainst Bemisia whiteflies. Laboratory assays demontrated the capacity of both pathogens to infect Bemisia rgentifolii nymphs on excised hibiscus leaves incubated t rel...

Although intact fruits of unripe cantaloupe (Cucumis melo L.) produce very little ethylene, a massive increase in ethylene production occurred in response to excision. The evidence indicates that this wound ethylene is produced from methionine via 1-aminocyclopropanecarboxylic acid (ACC) as in ripening fruits. Excision induced an increase in both ACC synthase and the enzyme converting ACC to et...

Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne bacterial pathogen and the causative agent of an infectious disease, listeriosis. L. monocytogenes is ubiquitous in nature and has the ability to persist in food processing environments for extended periods of time by forming biofilms and resisting industrial sanitization. Human listeriosis outbreaks are commonly linked to contaminated dairy products, ready...

F ood safety is something most Americans take for granted. But that confidence is shaken when there’s an outbreak of a food-borne illness, like the Listeria infection in Colorado cantaloupes last year that left 32 people dead. There’s plenty of reason to be concerned. One of every six people becomes ill each year from eating contaminated foods, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease ...

We examined the relationship of yellow sticky trap captures of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) biotype B parasitoids to the local population of parasitoids as measured by leaf samples of parasitized whiteflies and mass release of parasitoids. Traps were placed in experimental collard and cowpea field plots in Charleston, SC, and in commercial organic fields of spring cantaloupe and watermelon in the...

A famous painting entitled The Fruit Seller (Fruittivendola) painted in 1580 by Vincenzo Campi located in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, depicts an elegant lady vender with a lapful of peaches holding a bunch of black grapes presiding over more than a dozen different fruits and vegetables for sale (Fig. 1), including several cucurbits. A large yellow, oblate, ribbed pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L. ...

Effect of Sanitizer Treatments on Salmonella enterica Serotype Poona on the Surface of Cantaloupe and Cell Transfer to the Internal Tissue during Cutting Practices. (December 2004) Sasi Vadlamudi, B.E., Avinashilingam Institute for Higher Education for Women Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Alejandro Castillo In recent years, due to the increasing number of produce-related outbreaks, greater at...

Cantaloupe melon was the source of a lethal outbreak of Listeria in 2011. This research investigated whether washing a contaminated cantaloupe rind was sufficient in preventing the transferring of Escherichia coli. Hence, the null hypothesis for this study was that there is no association between washing a contaminated cantaloupe melon and the presence of the contamination in the flesh. In this...

A phage-based magnetoelastic (ME) biosensor method for the detection of Salmonella Typhimurium was compared with a TaqMan-based quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) method on cantaloupes. The selectivity of a qPCR primer set was investigated and different DNA extraction methods were compared. The limits of detection (LOD) of both detection methods were determined by serial inoculation of S. Typhim...