The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced intentions to award a sole-source contract to the Virginia Tech Eastern Shore Agricultural Research and Extension Center (ESAREC) to investigate the impact of pathogen strain on the survival of food-borne pathogens in manure amended soils under greenhouse conditions.
Target pathogens for the research include Salmonella enterica Newport (SeN), Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli (E. coli) 0157, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) non-0157, and generic Escherichia coli.
Previous field trails performed by ESAREC involved testing for these pathogens in water, amended soil, and poultry facilities. Continuity of methods and accessibility to facilities is required for the current sampling and testing results to be validly coupled and statistically analyzed.
Under the new contract, ESAREC will conduct greenhouse experiments to collect data on the survival dynamics of:
- 15 strains of Salmonella, inoculated into raw poultry manure, amended into two types of soil, and subjected to simulated rain
- 4 strains of generic E. Coli, 10 strains of E. coli 0157, and 4 strains of STEC non-0157, inoculated into raw cattle manure, amended into two types of soil, and subjected to rain
ESAREC will then provide raw data and statistical analysis to characterize how survival dynamics varies among the strains evaluated.
The contract is valued at $181,209.
