Occurrence of Fusarium mycotoxins in feedstuffs from farms with husbandry problems

In 1997-2002, 240 samples of animal feeds and 163 samples of cereals from farms with some husbandry problems were investigated for the occurrence and concentrations of toxic metabolites of Fusarium species: deoxynivalenol, nivalenol, T-2 toxin, diacetoxyscirpenol, zearalenone, fumonisins B1 and B2. Fumonisins were determined in 78 samples of mixed feeds, and 70 samples of corn collected in 1997. Trichothecenes and zearalenone were analysed in 162 samples of mixed feeds, and 93 samples of cereals collected in 1998-2002. Deoxynivalenol was found most frequently in mixed feeds for poultry (11%), corn (26.2%), wheat (29.4%), and rye (27.3%). The highest content of deoxynivalenol, 12 000 μg/kg, was detected in a sample of corn. The average contents of deoxynivalenol were 997.1 μg/kg in the samples of mixed feeds for poultry and from 130.0 to 3 103.6 μg/kg in the samples of various cereals. T-2 toxin was present in 2% of mixed feed samples for poultry (average 495 μg/kg) and in 4.8% of corn samples (average 200 μg/kg). Zearalenone was found in mixed feeds for poultry, mixed feeds for swine, corn and wheat samples with a range of 60-240 μg/kg, 54-403 μg/kg, 30-1 344 μg/kg and 180-600 μg/kg, respectively. The present study has revealed the co-occurrence of deoxynivalenol and zearalenone in 5% of samples of mixed feeds for poultry, and in 8.5% of corn and wheat samples. Neither presence of nivalenol nor diacetoxyscirpenol was detected in the analysed samples. Fumonisin B1 was found in 4.5% of samples of mixed feeds for poultry and in 25.7% of corn samples at concentrations ranging from 10.2 to 177.9 μg/kg. Fumonisin B2 was detected in 17.1% samples of corn. The average content of fumonisin B2 was 28.5 μg/kg and that toxin was co-occurring with fumonisin B1. No fumonisin B1 and fumonisin B2 were found in the samples of mixed feeds for swine.