Import risk analysis of fruit from Spain to Italy

The international trade has to ensure food security on the potential risk of consumer health, but also to preserve the diffusion of animal and plant deseases between different countries. While organic horticultural production and trade are under overgovernment no specific restrictions relay to conventional commodities and almost free import-export occurs among UE countries. So that to highlight the safety characteristics of imported fresh crops is become an important issue. On the basis of these considerations, the aim of present study was to monitor the epiphytic microflora (particularly yeasts and fungi) carried by fresh fruit imported from Spain to Italy. Particular attention was given to pathogenic microrganisms and to natural antagonists. In addition the resistance gainst a few postharvest fungicides was determined for the isolated strains and compared to local ones. Apples, citrus fruits, stone fruits, and persimmons were sampled at arrival of the container from Spain at the wholesale market in Sassari (Italy), this to prevent fruit contamination by local strains of microrganisms. The microorganisms were isolated by rinsing and shacking (30 min at 100 rpm) the fruit in a beaker with 500 mL of sterile water, then after concentration (7.5 mL), 100 µl of the rinse water was plated on potate dextrose agar (PDA). Isolation of pure colonies was done by streaking several times on plates, until unicellular cultures were obtained. Fiftythree microrganisms, mainly fungi and yeasts, have been isolated and assayed in vitro and in vivo. Pathogenic behaviour of isolated fungi was tested on fruits artificially wounded and only 5 strains out of 21 isolates caused decay. Then, the resistance to different concentrations of imazalil, 1-[2-(2,4-Dichlorophenyl)-2-(2-propenyloxy)-ethyl]-1H-imidazole, was tested in vitro for the 5 pathogenic isolates. All isolates were completly inhibitted with 1000 ppm IMZ evidencing that no resistant strains had been isolated from the imported fruit. Since the baseline resistance found for all isolates was similar to the indigenous strains we may conclude from this risk analysis that the import of those fruits do not increase the local line resistance. Key words: imported fresh fruits, epiphytic microflora, pathogenic microrganisms,