In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) prohibits the distribution of fruit that is dropped from the plant and contacts the ground during harvest. This includes fruit which contacts the ground while attached to the plant, called "drooping" fruit. In the Southeastern US, tomato and pepper are trellised and grown on plastic mulch. The objective of this study was to obtain bacterial transfer rates from a nonpathogenic Escherichia coli GFP inoculated on plastic mulch (black and white) to fruit (tomatoes and peppers) that contact the ground by being dropped (at heights of 30, 60, or 120 cm) or by drooping (contact times of 1 h or 24 h) in the field during the summer season in Georgia, USA. Plastic mulch was surface inoculated with E. coli (10