Xylose-lysine-tergitol 4: an improved selective agar medium for the isolation of Salmonella.

A study was conducted to evaluate a new selective plating medium for isolating Salmonella using pure bacterial cultures, and poultry environmental specimens containing high numbers of competing enteric bacteria. Xylose-lysine-tergitol 4 (XLT4) agar was found to strongly inhibit Proteus, Pseudomonas, Providencia, and many other nonsalmonellae and to provide good differentiation between Salmonella and Citrobacter. The XLT4 medium significantly improved Salmonella isolation from chicken farm environmental drag-swab samples over the other selective plating media evaluated.