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Environment and Survival

Brettanomyces has been thought to occur naturally on the skins of fruit such as apples and grapes. However, there are only a handful of reports of Brettanomyces being identified on the skins of fruit . In contrast, there are also studies that indicate Brettanomyces only being found during or after food processing, which indicates that the processing equipment may be the primary source for the Brettanomyces. Although it is generally thought that Brettanomyces originates from the skins of fruit, in general, there is also a lack of direct evidence that Brettanomyces occurs in abundance naturally on fruit skins. In addition, Brettanomyces has been isolated from the surfaces of equipment in wineries and breweries (Table 1). For example, an ongoing survey of wild yeasts in most of the US which isolated nearly 2,000 isolates with 262 unique species has not yet found a single occurrence of Brettanomyces in the wild (so far they have only surveyed non-human inhabited wild areas of the US and Alaska; substrates sampled included leaves, soil, bark, moss, mushrooms, needles, pine cones, twigs/wood, and other plant matter) . It is also thought to disperse via fruit-flies (called "vectors" in the scientific literature), similar to how Saccharomyces travels, although direct evidence for this has only been reported rarely and only on fruit-flies in wineries that are likely to come into contact with equipment/food/waste that is already contaminated with Brettanomyces . Brettanomyces is known to be difficult to grow in a lab due to slow growth, specific nutrient requirements, or perhaps because of a "VBNC" state (see Wild Brettanomyces for more information), which may account for the lack of evidence for fruit being the primary natural habitat for Brettanomyces. More recently, techniques have been invented to more easily isolate and grow Brettanomyces . There is also significant evidence that the natural habitat of Brettanomyces might actually be the root systems of certain plants, known as the "rhizosphere". The rhizosphere refers to the complex symbiotic community of microbe populations that live on or around the root system of plants. Wild strains of Brettanomyces have been found in the root systems of dill, common beans, sunflowers, maize, corn, jute, cassava, and grey mangroves found in the estuaries of Indonesia . See Dr. Bryan Heit's video "Where (Do) The Wild Brettanomyces Roam?" and his comments in Milk The Funk, as well as "Philip Poole. Plant Control of the Rhizosphere Microbiome". For documented isolation attempts from plant rhizospheres, see Wild Yeast Isolation.