Mycotoxins in the Environment: I. Production and Emission from an Agricultural Test Field

Abstract

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites that are naturally produced by fungi which infest and contaminate agricultural crops and commodities (e.g., small grain cereals, fruits, vegetables, and organic soil material). Although these compounds have extensively been studied in food and feed, only little is known about their environmental fate. Therefore, we investigated over nearly two years the occurrence of various mycotoxins in a field cropped with winter wheat of the variety Levis, which was artificially inoculated with Fusarium spp., as well as their emission via drainage water. Mycotoxins were regularly quantified in whole wheat plants (0.1-133 mg/kg(dry weight), for deoxynivalenol), and drainage water samples (0.8 ng/L to 1.14 μg/L, for deoxynivalenol). From the mycotoxins quantified in wheat (3-acetyl-deoxynivalenol, deoxynivalenol, fusarenone-X, nivalenol, HT-2 toxin, T-2 toxin, beauvericin, and zearalenone), only the more hydrophilic ones or those prevailing at high concentrations were detected in drainage water. Of the total amounts produced in wheat plants (min: 2.3; max: 292 g/ha/y), 0.5-354 mg/ha/y, i.e. 0.002-0.12%, were emitted via drainage water. Hence, these compounds add to the complex mixture of natural and anthropogenic micropollutants particularly in small rural water bodies, receiving mainly runoff from agricultural areas.

Insight into the biosensing of graphene oxide: Present and future prospects

“…Certain genre of fungi 35 release mycotoxins which are toxic in nature and contaminate agriculture food stock. They are carcinogenic and cause adverse health effects (Schenze et al, 2012;Richard et al, 2007). In another study, easily producible and cost effective aptamers have been used as an alternative to antibodies for the detection of mycotoxins.…”

SnPKS19 Encodes the Polyketide Synthase for Alternariol Mycotoxin Biosynthesis in the Wheat Pathogen Parastagonospora nodorum

“…Mycotoxins also cause significant economic losses in agriculture due to reduced crop value resulting from mycotoxin contamination and losses in animal productivity from mycotoxin-induced health problems (2). Furthermore, there are increasing concerns about mycotoxins in indoor environments (3), the contamination of water with mycotoxins in agricultural land affected by mycotoxin-producing plant pathogens (4), and the effect of climate change on mycotoxin contamination of pre-and postharvest food (5,6).…”

Infection conditions of Fusarium graminearum in barley are variety specific and different from those in wheat

“…It must be noted that the higher DON content in 2015 was mainly a result of the high contamination of the overwintered straw plots. We assume that the high precipitation at the end of the growing season caused leaching of the water soluble DON, as was observed in field studies artificially spray inoculated with FG in the USA and in Switzerland (Gautam and Dill-Macky 2012;Schenzel et al 2012).…”