Purpose: Objectives of this study were to assess microbial risks of sweet persimmon farm and their cultivation areas and to provide basic data for the establishment of a good agricultural practices (GAP) model.
Methods: A total of 74 samples were collected from cultivation environments (soil, irrigation water, and atmosphere), plants (sweet persimmon and its leaf), personnel hygiene (glove, cloth, and hand), agricultural products processing center (tray loader, conveyer belt, weighing cup, collector, box) located in Gyeongnam, Korea, and were tested to analyze sanitary indicator bacteria (aerobic plate count, coliforms and Escherichia coli), major foodborne pathogens (E. coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus cereus), and fungi.
Results: Total bacteria, coliform, and fungi in the sweet persimmon farms were detected at the level of 0.5~6.9, 0.5~5.6, and 1.0~5.1 log CFU/g (or leaf, ml, hand, 100cm2), respectively. Only soil was confirmed to be E. coli positive. In case of pathogenic bacteria, B. cereus was detected at levels of 1.0 ~ 4.4 log CFU/g (or ml, hand, and 100 cm2) in some samples. S. aureus was maximum detected level of 2.0 log CFU/100cm2 in carrier box. But other pathogen bacteria including (E. coli O157, L. monocytogenes, and Salmonella spp.) were not detected in any samples. Although E. coli were detected in irrigation water, the level of microbial was lower than the regulation limit.
Significance: According to the results, the microbial population on the sweet persimmon was detected at lower level as compared with the standards set by Korean government. However, cross-contamination of microorganism by cultivation environments and worker has been generally reported, an efficient GAP model is one of the most important things to improve the safety of sweet persimmon for microbiological hazards. Therefore, the results could be used as basic data to establish GAP model for providing safer sweet persimmon than before.