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Impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation

Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags are used by farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa for pest management of stored grains and products, including maize. These bags hermetically seal the products, preventing exchange with external moisture and gases. Biological respiration within the bags create an env...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Tubbs, Timothy, Baributsa, Dieudonne, Woloshuk, Charles
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5146292/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27990032
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jspr.2016.10.003
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author Tubbs, Timothy
Baributsa, Dieudonne
Woloshuk, Charles
author_facet Tubbs, Timothy
Baributsa, Dieudonne
Woloshuk, Charles
author_sort Tubbs, Timothy
collection PubMed
description Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags are used by farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa for pest management of stored grains and products, including maize. These bags hermetically seal the products, preventing exchange with external moisture and gases. Biological respiration within the bags create an environment that is unsuitable for insect development and fungal growth. This study was conducted to determine the impact of routine opening of the storage bags for maize consumption on fungal growth and aflatoxin contamination. Maize with moisture contents (MC) high enough to support fungal growth (15%, 16%, 18% and 20%) was stored in PICS bags, which were opened weekly and exposed to humid conditions (85% RH) for 30 min over a period of 8 weeks and 24 weeks. Monitors indicated that oxygen defused into the open bags but did not reach equilibrium with the bottom layers of grain during the 30-min exposure period. Fungal colony forming units obtained from the grain surface increased 3-fold (at 15% MC) to 10,000-fold (at 20% MC) after 8 weeks. At both 8 weeks and 24 weeks, aflatoxin was detected in at least one bag at each grain moisture, suggesting that aflatoxin contamination spread from a planted source of A. flavus-colonized grain to non-inoculated grain. The results indicate that repeatedly breaking the hermetic seal of the PICS bags will increase fungal growth and the risk of aflatoxin contamination, especially in maize stored at high moisture content. This work also further demonstrates that maize should be properly dried prior to storage in PICS bags.
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spelling pubmed-51462922016-12-15 Impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation Tubbs, Timothy Baributsa, Dieudonne Woloshuk, Charles J Stored Prod Res Article Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags are used by farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa for pest management of stored grains and products, including maize. These bags hermetically seal the products, preventing exchange with external moisture and gases. Biological respiration within the bags create an environment that is unsuitable for insect development and fungal growth. This study was conducted to determine the impact of routine opening of the storage bags for maize consumption on fungal growth and aflatoxin contamination. Maize with moisture contents (MC) high enough to support fungal growth (15%, 16%, 18% and 20%) was stored in PICS bags, which were opened weekly and exposed to humid conditions (85% RH) for 30 min over a period of 8 weeks and 24 weeks. Monitors indicated that oxygen defused into the open bags but did not reach equilibrium with the bottom layers of grain during the 30-min exposure period. Fungal colony forming units obtained from the grain surface increased 3-fold (at 15% MC) to 10,000-fold (at 20% MC) after 8 weeks. At both 8 weeks and 24 weeks, aflatoxin was detected in at least one bag at each grain moisture, suggesting that aflatoxin contamination spread from a planted source of A. flavus-colonized grain to non-inoculated grain. The results indicate that repeatedly breaking the hermetic seal of the PICS bags will increase fungal growth and the risk of aflatoxin contamination, especially in maize stored at high moisture content. This work also further demonstrates that maize should be properly dried prior to storage in PICS bags. Elsevier 2016-10 /pmc/articles/PMC5146292/ /pubmed/27990032 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jspr.2016.10.003 Text en © 2016 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tubbs, Timothy
Baributsa, Dieudonne
Woloshuk, Charles
Impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation
title Impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation
title_full Impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation
title_fullStr Impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation
title_full_unstemmed Impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation
title_short Impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation
title_sort impact of opening hermetic storage bags on grain quality, fungal growth and aflatoxin accumulation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5146292/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27990032
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jspr.2016.10.003
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