One in every five air samples in almond orchards adjacent to a poultry operation tested positive for E. coli during a two-year study published recently.
“Microorganisms Move a Short Distance into an Almond Orchard from an Adjacent Upwind Poultry Operation” comes as romaine growers continue to study the impact of a 100,000-head cattle feed lot adjacent to Arizona growing fields.
Lettuce growers from regions in California are also looking at implications of having animal operations in the areas near food crops. The Food and Drug Administration recently posted a conclusion that animal operations were the likely cause behind romaine E. coli outbreaks in 2018-19.
The almond research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology,