The effect of additives on mycotoxic contamination of maize silages

Abstract

Addition of silage additives is commonly concentrated on the improvement of nutritive and fermentative features of silages, but in recent years, mycotoxic contamination is also a feature monitored after the treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of silage additives, in the concrete inoculant consisting of a mixture of Lactobacillus buchneri LN40177, Lactobacillus casei LC329090 and urea, on the concentration of major mycotoxins in maize silages. The ensilage mass was made in three variants, which consisted of maize silage (control variant C), maize silage with the addition of a commercial inoculant (variant A) and maize silage with the addition of urea (variant U). The commercial inoculant was added to the cut mass at a dose of 1 g/t of mass and urea at a dose of 5 kg/t of mass. After application of silage additives, the mass was stored and sealed in silage units. Mycotoxin analysis was performed using Veratox tests with ELISA reader, whereas average samples were prepared according to established protocols. The immuno-enzymatic method revealed that all samples of maize silage showed 100% contamination. The maize silages were characterized by the highest concentration of deoxynivalenol regardless of the treatment. The results confirmed the effect of silage additives on mycotoxic contamination of maize silages. Compared to the control variant, the commercial inoculant had negative increasing effect (P<0.05) on deoxynivalenol, ochratoxins and zearalenone, and a positive decreasing effect (P<0.05) on T-2 toxin and fumonisins. The urea addition resulted in significant reduction of T-2 toxin and increase of zearalenone.

Keywords

• maize silage
• inoculant
• urea
• mycotoxins