Modelling the Effects of Weather Conditions on Cereal Grain Contamination with Deoxynivalenol in the Baltic Sea Region

• Published in: Toxins Vol. 13; no. 11; p. 737
• Main Authors: Marzec-Schmidt, Katarzyna, Börjesson, Thomas, Suproniene, Skaidre, Jędryczka, Małgorzata, Janavičienė, Sigita, Góral, Tomasz, Karlsson, Ida, Kochiieru, Yuliia, Ochodzki, Piotr, Mankevičienė, Audronė, Piikki, Kristin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 20-10-2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Accumulation; Agricultural Science; Agronomic crops; Avena - chemistry; Avena - microbiology; Baltic States; Blight; Cereals; Climate change; Contamination; Deoxynivalenol; deoxynivalenol (DON) prediction; Edible Grain - chemistry; Edible Grain - microbiology; Flowering; Food contamination & poisoning; Food Contamination - analysis; Fungicides; Fusarium; Fusarium head blight; Fusarium head blight—FHB; Grain; Heat resistance; High temperature; Hordeum - chemistry; Hordeum - microbiology; Humidity; Jordbruksvetenskap; Lithuania; machine learning; Models, Theoretical; Mycotoxins; Oats; Pathogens; Performance enhancement; Pesticides; phenological development; Poland; Precipitation; Relative humidity; Resistance factors; Ripening; Seasons; Senescence; small grain cereals; Spring (season); Spring wheat; Sweden; Toxins; Trends; Trichothecenes - analysis; Trichothecenes - chemistry; Triticum - chemistry; Triticum - microbiology; Variables; Weather; Wheat; Winter wheat; Poland; Sweden; Baltic States; Lithuania; Norway; Europe; Finland; Baltic Sea; Fusarium head blight—FHB; small grain cereals; mycotoxins; phenological development; Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient; deoxynivalenol (DON) prediction; machine learning
• ISSN: 2072-6651; 2072-6651
• DOI: 10.3390/toxins13110737

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the most serious diseases of small-grain cereals worldwide, resulting in yield reduction and an accumulation of the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) in grain. Weather conditions are known to have a significant effect on the ability of fusaria to infect cereals and produce toxins. In the past 10 years, severe outbreaks of FHB, and grain DON contamination exceeding the EU health safety limits, have occurred in countries in the Baltic Sea region. In this study, extensive data from field trials in Sweden, Poland and Lithuania were analysed to identify the most crucial weather variables for the ability of
to produce DON. Models were developed for the prediction of DON contamination levels in harvested grain exceeding 200 µg kg
for oats, spring barley and spring wheat in Sweden and winter wheat in Poland, and 1250 µg kg
for spring wheat in Lithuania. These models were able to predict high DON levels with an accuracy of 70-81%. Relative humidity (RH) and precipitation (PREC) were identified as the weather factors with the greatest influence on DON accumulation in grain, with high RH and PREC around flowering and later in grain development and ripening correlated with high DON levels. High temperatures during grain development and senescence reduced the risk of DON accumulation. The performance of the models, based only on weather variables, was relatively accurate. In future studies, it might be of interest to determine whether inclusion of variables such as pre-crop, agronomic factors and crop resistance to FHB could further improve the performance of the models.