Survey of Fungal Infection and Fusarium Mycotoxins Contamination of Maize during Storage in Korea in 2015

Abstract

Maize is one of the most cultivated cereals as a staple food in the world. The harvested maize is mainly stored after drying, but its quality and nutrition could be debased by fungal spoilage and mycotoxin contamination. In this study, we surveyed mycotoxin contamination fungal infection of maize kernels that were stored for almost one year after harvest in 2015. The amount of deoxynivalenol and zearalenone detected were higher than the other mycotoxin, such as aflatoxin, ochratoxin, fumonisin and T-2 toxin. In particular, level of deoxynivalenol was detected as 1200±610 µg/kg in small size kernels, which was four to six times higher than the large and the medium size kernels. Moreover, the amount of deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, and fumonisin were increased with discolored kernels. 10 species including Fusarium spp., Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp. were isolated from the maize kernels. F. graminearum was predominant in the discolored kernels with detection rates of 60% (red) and 40% (brown). Our study shows that the mycotoxin contents of stored maize can be increased by discolored maize kernels mixed. Therefore elimination of the contaminated maize kernels will help prevent fungal infection and mycotoxin contamination in stored maize.

Keywords

• Deoxynivalenol
• Fusarium graminearum
• Mycotoxin
• Storage
• Zearalenone