fungicides

Fusarium toxins

Sphingomonas sp

Aureobasidium pullulans

plant biostimulator

Plants

Plant pathology

Fungi

Mycotoxins

Fungi of the genus Fusarium infect cereal crops during the growing season and cause head blight (FHB). Their secondary metabolites (mycotoxins) contaminate grain. Mycotoxins are not degraded during standard food and feed processing operations or in vivo digestion, and are dangerous to human health. In a threeyear field experiment we evaluated the effects of biological control agents and a plant biostimulator (as well as fungicides) on the development of Fusarium head blight (FHB), winter wheat grain colonization by Fusarium fungi, and the accumulation of ergosterol, deoxynivalenol, nivalenol, zearalenone, beauvericin, enniatins, and moniliformin in winter wheat grain. The biological control agents were bacterial isolates of the genera Sphingomonas and fungal isolates of Aureobasidium pullulans. All protective treatments inhibited kernel tissue penetration by Fusarium pathogens, and contributed to a natural reduction in Fusarium spp. populations after six months of grain storage. In comparison with the untreated control, bacterial isolates reduced the abundance of fungal pathogens by 23.5% at harvest and by 100% after a six-month storage period, yeasts by 34.1% and 40.9%, fungicides by 22.1-65.5% and 100%, and the plant biostimulator by 68.1% and 100%, respectively. Fungicides were most effective in reducing wheat grain contamination with deoxynivalenol, whereas bacteria and the plant biostimulator with nivalenol. A. pullulans can effectively inhibit the proliferation of a wide spectrum of Fusarium toxins (deoxynivalenol, nivalenol, enniatins, and moniliformin).