A comparative study of the phyllosphere mycobiota of pre-harvest and post-harvest broccoli florets

We collected 106 broccoli floret samples from local farms and retail grocery stores representing pre-harvest and post-harvest broccolis, respectively. We amplified and sequenced fungal ITS2 region of ribosomal RNA genes from the metagenomes of broccoli florets using Illumina MiSeq sequencing. We compared the community composition and structure of phyllosphere mycobiota between pre-harvest and post-harvest broccolis, and characterized the impact of post-harvest processing on the phyllosphere mmycobiota of broccoli florets.