Limited survey of deoxynivalenol in wheat from different crop rotation fields in Yangtze-Huaihe river basin region of China

Abstract

The food toxin, deoxynivalenol (DON) is frequently present in cereals such as wheat, barley and maize, which are infected by Fusarium asiaticum and Fusarium graminearium. Crop rotation and climatic conditions play a major role in the Fusarium infection in wheat. In this present study, a minor survey was conducted to find out the impact of crop rotation affecting the Fusarium infection leading to DON contamination in wheat samples from selected infected regions of Jiang su and An hui provinces, China, especially during harvest period in 2012. A total of 84 wheat samples from the highly Fusarium infected region were collected, of which 30, 8, 39 and 7 samples were from the fields where cotton, corn, rice, and soya bean was a rotation crop, respectively. DON concentration in wheat sample was analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) combined with ultraviolet detection. DON contamination in the wheat samples was 95% with the mean DON concentration of 3881.2 μg/kg from both the regions. Average DON contamination in wheat samples from cotton, soya beans, corn, and rice rotation fields were 2067.5, 2853.6, 3517.5, and 4899.3 μg/kg, respectively. Nearly 34% of the wheat samples from the cotton rotation fields were below the DON maximum tolerable limits of EU (1750.0 μg/kg) and only 3% samples were above 4000.0 μg/kg DON concentration. However, the average DON contamination level was the highest in wheat samples (4899.3 μg/kg) where rice was a rotation crop, with 64% of the samples were above 4000.0 μg/kg. The present study shows cotton could be a promising rotation crop in the regions where wheat is more prone to the infection of Fusarium sp, which may minimize the economic loss to the farmers in wheat.