Carob pulp as raw material for production of the biocontrol agent P. agglomerans PBC-1.

Large-scale production has been the major obstacle to the success of many biopesticides. The spreading of microbial biocontrol agents against postharvest disease, as a safe and environmentally friendly alternative to synthetic fungicides, is quite dependent on their industrial mass production from low-cost raw materials. Considerable interest has been shown in using agricultural waste products and by-products from food industry as nitrogen and carbon sources. In this work, carob pulp aqueous extracts were used as carbon source in the production of the biocontrol agent Pantoea agglomerans PBC-1. Optimal sugar extraction was achieved at a solid/liquid ratio of 1:10 (w/v), at 25°C, for 1 h. Batch experiments were performed in shake flasks, at different concentrations and in stirred reactors at two initial inoculums concentrations, 10(6) and 10(7) cfu ml(-1). The initial sugar concentration of 5 g l(-1) allowed rapid growth (0.16 h(-1)) and high biomass productivity (0.28 g l(-1) h(-1)) and was chosen as the value for use in stirred reactor experiments. After 22 and 32 h of fermentation the viable population reached was 3.2 × 10(9) and 6.2 × 10(9) cfu ml(-1) in the fermenter inoculated at 10(6) cfu ml(-1) and 2.7 × 10(9) and 6.7 × 10(9) cfu ml(-1) in the bioreactor inoculated at 10(7) cfu ml(-1). A 78% reduction of the pathogen incidence was achieved with PBC-1 at 1 × 10(8) cfu ml(-1), grown in medium with carob extracts, on artificially wounded apples stored after 7 days at 25°C against P. expansum.