Melons are nutritious fruits with numerous health-promoting properties. Melon varieties include the smooth-skinned honeydews and also cantaloupes which exhibit a network of rougher, suberized tissue, referred to as the “net”. Episodes of foodborne illnesses from contamination with Salmonella and Listeria, associated mostly with netted melons, are of concern to the producers and consumers alike.
The surface of the cantaloupe melon, with its meshwork of netting, provides a large number of attachment sites for bacteria and makes it difficult to remove attached bacteria once in place. The physical characteristics of the surface of fruit, such as roughness and hydrophobicity, and presence of deep fissures in the netting, are believed to play a role in bacterial attachment and resistance of bacteria to the cleaning and sanitization procedures. In this study, the rind in selected cultivars was examined by scanning electron microscopy, and digital elevation models (DEMs) were created from stereo images in order to quantitate the profile roughness and surface texture parameters. The results are compared with results of the Salmonella and Listeria attachment study performed on adjacent areas on the same individual fruit.

Digital Elevation Model of a cantaloupe cultivar F-39, generated from a stero pair of Scanning Electron Microscope images, at stage tilt -12, +12 degrees. The model represents a 10 x 10 mm surface area. Surface elevation is represented by the color hue.

Sadhana Ravishanker

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