The
MyToolBox project partners tested several pre-harvest mycotoxin reduction strategies for farmers in view
to their efficacies. These measures comprised: biopesticides and biofumigation
techniques tested in field and glasshouse experiments with wheat and oats in
the UK and Norway; resistance of maize cultivars against
Aspergillus flavus infection tested in fields in Italy and Serbia; and
newly isolated atoxigenic
Aspergillus
flavus strains tested in fields in Serbia. The strategies for mycotoxin
reduction in maize grown in Southern Europe showed very promising results:
Using resistant plant cultivars resulted in up to 98% reduction of aflatoxin B1
at normal yields, while the use of an atoxigenic strain showed aflatoxin B1
reductions of up to 73%. Biocontrol strategies for wheat and oats in the UK and
Norway were optimised. These efforts were complemented by developing European
models that predict deoxynivalenol contamination in wheat, and fumonisins and
aflatoxin contamination in maize, up to 4 days in advance. For biofuel
production recombinant enzymes were added to bioethanol production: Fumonisin B1
and zearalenone could be simultaneously degraded up to 99% and 89%,
respectively, in lab-scale tests. Formation of the degradation products hydrolysed
fumonisin B1 and hydrolysed zearalenone confirmed the
biotransformation.
To prevent
post-harvest mycotoxin contaminations during storage, sensors were developed to
predict potential fungal growth – and thus mycotoxin contamination – in wheat
and maize stored in European silos. Their functionality and underlying
algorithms were tested and improved in pilot-scale silos. By including CO2
as an early-warning parameter, zearalenone contamination in wheat and aflatoxin
B1 contamination in maize could be forecasted 3–5 days earlier than
using only temperature-sensitive sensors. These efforts were complemented by
developing similar prediction models for peanuts stored in large-scale silos in
China.
Evaluating
milling and baking techniques provided encouraging results for food producers
and regulators: Different sorting, milling and micronisation techniques were
studied and combined to reduce deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination in the final
product. The optimum balance of low DON at high fibre content was achieved by
using the medium bran fraction combined with hammer milling and sieving sifter,
resulting in a final product in which DON levels are well below the maximum
limits and total dietary fibre is significantly higher than in standard whole-wheat
products. DON transformation during baking was assessed by using a 12C/13C
labelling LC-HRMS metabolomics approach, pioneering a full mass balance of DON
degradation during thermal processing: DON degraded by 6% in crackers, 5% in
biscuits and 2% in bread, isoDON (1.3–3.9%) being the major degradation
product. In vitro translation experiments indicate isoDON being less toxic than
DON. The project results in optimising processing procedures for mycotoxin
mitigation were taken into account in the report of the
BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment on processing
factors in cereal food chains and recommendations for regulators.
Within
MyToolBox, also a novel sorting system for dried figs based on a combination of
optical sorting technologies and algorithms was developed. The prototype was
demonstrated to end users in October 2019, and achieved an increased accuracy
of up to 80 % under UV light.
Overall,
the MyToolBox e-platform was launched officially on February 28, 2020: Besides
including the real-time forecasting of mycotoxins in fields and silos,
available information such as Good Agricultural Practices, sampling schemes,
scenarios for cropping seasons, regulations, etc. were analysed, combined and
transformed into easy-to-understand text to ensure that end-users all along the
food and feed chain find suitable information – informed and tested
particularly by focus-group meetings with potential end-users held in the
Netherlands, UK, Serbia, Italy, Norway and China.