Contamination of Malting Barley by Toxigenic Fungi of Genera Fusarium and Cochliobolus

Abstract

Nowadays investigations of safety assessment of foods might be carried out using nanotechnologies. Apart from medical diagnostics, PCR is now used in investigations of genetics analysis, discovering of genetically modified products and identification of microbial contaminants of food material. Contamination of malting barley by toxigenic microorganisms is of immediate interest for brewing industry. In this work we investigated grains of Russia-specific malting barley Benthe and Cherio of 2015 and 2016 harvesting years. "Germination abilities" of Benthe and Cherio seeds of the crop of 2015 and 2016 were low: 65.8% and 76%; 62.8% and 78%, respectively. Starch content in grains conforms to standards regardless the harvesting year and protein content of Bente of 2016 exceeds the regulated characteristics. Phytopathogenic microbial contamination of grain is mainly presented by fungi of Fusarium genus and Cochliobolus sativus species, but correlation between these phytopathogenic fungi varies depending on the harvesting year. Using species-specific primers in PCR we defined belonging of fungi of Fusarium genus to toxigenic Fusarium graminearum species for three Benthe samples of the 2016 harvesting year and for nine Cherio samples of the 2016 harvesting year.

New educational technologies as a means of cross - regional cooperation in the field of food raw material and product safety control

“…Currently, the control of physicochemical indicators and food product and food waste indicators includes verification their compliance with the requirements of regulating documents for the content of heavy metals, radionuclides, pesticides, other chemical pollutants, pathogens, protozoa, helminths and biological toxins that could be harm for human health [14,15].…”