In observing the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH), the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Pretoria hosted a seminar series on plant health and food safety at the FABI Auditorium on 2 March. Speakers included Dr Shirley Micallef of the University of Maryland in the US, Prof. Gabi Berg of Graz University of Technology in Austria and PhD candidate Werner Rossouw. Dr Micallef’s talk, “Pre-harvest food safety from farm to fruit: Salmonella dynamics and interactions with crops” tracked the prevalence of pathogens on a farm’s produce irrigated with water from a creek. Part of the study investigated the prevalence of Salmonella, E.coli and Listeria on radish (which had direct contact with the water) and on kale leaves. The study found that the soil in which the produce grew had significant differences in bacterial communities. 

Prof. Gabi Berg showed in her presentation “Plant microbiomes for human gut health and well-being: Fact or fiction?” that microbial diversity was not only important for gut health but was also at the centre of “planetary health”. She showed that microbial diversity contributed to healthy seed, which in turn produced healthy plants. Prof. Berg is in South Africa to continue her collaborative research programme with Prof. Lise Korsten, which focuses on the microbiome of fresh fruit and vegetables and post-harvest waste and losses. Werner Rossouw highlighted his PhD study in “The microbiome of Agaricus bisporus (Lange) Imbach and the prevalence of foodborne pathogens and mycoparasitic fungal pathogens in white button mushroom production”.