The effect of incubation time for Salmonella Typhimurium binding to phage-based magnetoelastic biosensors

► Effect of incubation time on Salmonella binding to magnetoelastic sensors studied. ► E2 phage-based sensors exposed to bacteria and nutrients on tomato surface. ► Significant resonant frequency shift observed with incubation time up to 30 min. ► Incubation times greater than 30 min only increased non-specific binding. ► Results contribute to the development of a practical protocol using ME biosensor.