Waxing and cultivar affect Salmonella enterica persistence on cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) fruit

A dearth of knowledge exists on the pathogen-commodity association of Salmonella enterica on cucumber, despite cucumbers being implicated in multiple salmonellosis outbreaks in recent years in the U.S. Data are lacking on cultivar susceptibility to Salmonella colonization in relation to heterogeneity in fruit surface morphology. Further, fruit waxing is a common practice in wholesale cucumber to preserve the water content of fruit and prolong shelf-life, but its impact on epiphytic microbiota is not well studied. This study investigated the survival of Salmonella Newport and S. Javiana on the surface of six cucumber cultivars of varying surface morphology and the effect of fruit waxing on the persistence of S. Newport. S. Newport and S. Javiana were spot inoculated onto fruit of cultivars ‘Marketmore 97’, ‘Patio Snacker’ and ‘Corinto’ (varieties with trichomes or spines), and ‘Bella’, ‘Pepinex’ and ‘Summer Dance’ (glabrous or smooth varieties). Cucumbers were held at room temperature for 24 h before inoculated sections of exocarp were excised for enteropathogen enumeration. S. Javiana persisted at higher populations than S. Newport (1.0 and 1.5 log CFU g−1 exocarp decline, respectively) after 24 h (P