Invisible micropollutants invade crops, water supply

Their study, which reveals a need for stronger monitoring and control of these overlooked “micropollutants,” is scheduled for the Feb. 13 issue of ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication.

The contaminants are members of a larger family fungal-produced toxins called mycotoxins. In the report, Thomas Bucheli and colleagues note that scientists have studied two of the most common mycotoxins — deoxynivalenol and zearalenone — in food and animal feed products for decades. However, scientists know very little about the distribution of these toxins elsewhere in the environment.

In the new study, the researchers exposed a winter wheat field to Fusarium graminearum, a major fungal source of deoxynivalenol and zearalenone, and subsequently monitored these toxins in the field’s drainage water before, during and after harvest. Using high-tech lab instruments, they found that levels of these toxins increased significantly after harvest. Levels of deoxynivalenol, for instance, rose by almost 4,000-fold. Traces of these toxins were also found in a number of Swiss rivers, they note.-American Chemical Society