The occurrence of mycotoxins in sweet maize hybrids

The objective of the present study was to investigate the susceptibility of maize hybrids to the natural mycotoxins contamination: aflatoxin total (AFLA), deoxynivalenol (DON), zearalenon (ZEA) and fumonisins (FB). Hybrids were grown during two production years (2019 and 2020) in two locations. Mycotoxin contamination of maize grains was evaluated in five sweet maize hybrids. Contamination level of investigated hybrids of first cluster was mainly by below average values of ZEA (all equal to zero) and DON. Hybrids PK4 (S) 2020, PK6 (MS) 2020 and PK4 (MS) 2020 had below average values for AFLA, while remaining treatments of this cluster have mostly elevated values of this mycotoxin. Contamination level of investigated hybrids of second cluster mostly had increased values of mycotoxins ZEA and DON and below average values of AFLA. Samples did not contain fumonisins. Mycotoxin contamination were significantly affected by hybrids and years. We have established that DON and ZEA levels were influenced by the environmental conditions. There were no significant effects of location on the level of AFLA in the sweet maize hybrids. The variation in the properties of mycotoxin content (DON) was significantly influenced by hybrids, and there was no significance of hybrids x location interaction. Differences were more expressed for the content of ZEA and AFLA compared to the content of DON. Hybrid PK1 had the lowest content of DON, while it had the highest content of ZEA. Mycotoxin analyses showed that in all tested hybrids, levels of AFLA, DON, ZEA and FBs were below the maximum permissible levels stipulated by the legislation of the European Union and the Republic of Serbia in maize intended for direct human consumption. These results confirmed that the susceptibility of hybrids is one of the important risks, in addition to climatic factors, for the appearance of toxigenic fungi and their mycotoxins. Genotype tolerance is very important as a preventive measure, which indicates that breeders have to pay attention to it in sweet maize breeding programs.