Contamination of Plant Substrates Evaluated by Mycological and Mycotoxicological Investigations

Abstract

Mycologically and mycotoxicologically, 26 samples were analyzed (corn grains, corn flour, wheat, soybeans, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds), representing plant substrates. The highest fungal load was recorded for corn grains (35 x 10-3 and 360 x 10-3 cfu/g) and wheat grains (190 x 10-3 and 240 x 10-3 cfu/g) and the lowest was highlighted in soybeans (3 x 10-3 and 23 x 10-3 cfu/g). For corn flour, the values did not exceed 45 x 10-3 cfu/g and for sunflower and pumpkin seeds the degree of fungal contamination was average, the number of colony-forming units remaining confined between 11 x 10-3 and 65 x 10-3 and 19 x 10-3 and 80 x 10-3 cfu/g, with insignificant differences between these two assortments. The purpose of this research was to discover the dominant fungal flora in the geographical area of the Moldavian Plateau, thus concluding that the genera Aspergillus (68.0%), Fusarium (59.7%) and Cladosporium (51.3%) predominated in the higher proportion, and from a mycotoxicological viewpoint, the mycotoxins identified in plant substrates were zearalenone and ochratoxin.

Keywords

• contamination
• fungi
• mycotoxins
• plant substrates