Investigation and evaluation of fumonisin contamination of native and imported cereals

Abstract

Cereal varieties cultivated in Germany, such as wheat, rye, grain-maize, barley, and oats were analyzed for fumonisins, including also imported maize from Argentina. In a total of 410 wheat samples and 140 rye samples of two harvesting years (1993, 1994) and in random samples of barley and oats no fumonisins were detected at all. In german grain-maize of 1993, only low fumonisin contents (17-33 ng/g) were detected occasionally. Some grainmaize samples of the 1994 harvest contained significantly higher fumonisin amounts, partly up to the mg/kg-range, which obviously is due to the extremely high temperatures during summer. In some samples of variety tests of the country the fumonisin B1 content amounted up to 4828 ng/g and the total fumonisin content (FB1-FB3) up to 7132 ng/g respectively. In 1994 a total of 317 native grain-maize samples was tested, of it 109 samples of German cultivation and 208 samples from variety tests of different federal states. Maize samples from Baden-Württemberg, which are representative to the maize harvest of this state, had a fumonisin contamination of 14%, the mean value of the contaminated samples amounting to 206 ng/g. Of the imported maize from Argentina, all the investigated 21 samples had a fumonisin content (FB1-FB3) of 14-1106 ng/g, the mean fumonisin content amounting to 175 ng/g.