AFLATOXIN: CAN BE MANAGED BY SOIL AMENDMENTS IN GROUNDNUT?

Abstract

Aflatoxins are metabolites mostly produced by Aspergillus flavus and A parasiticus habituating in soil and contaminating crop’s produce throughout food chain from field, food factory to market and table. In groundnut Aflatoxins are considered to be a danger to human health, worldwide food safety and restricting the trade of produce of crop worldwide. Elimination of aflatoxin is not possible, however application of several pre-harvest and postharvest techniques can mitigate aflatoxin contamination. Present study has been conducted to investigate impact of application of different soil amendments viz; farm yard manure (FYM), cereal crop residue (CCR), and gypsum (GYP) in combination or alone at time of sowing and 50 days after sowing (DAS) to alleviate aflatoxin contamination in Groundnut under rainfed conditions. Experiment was conducted at two locations (Chakwal & Attock). Data of some chemical and physical soil properties i.e., electrical conductivity, potential of hydrogen, percentage of organic matter, available phosphorous (ppm), available potassium, saturation percentage and texture of the field before planting were recorded. Aflatoxin quantity was determined by using optical density value (OD) of enzymatic analysis of groundnut samples. Although all the amendments reduced aflatoxin significantly as compared with control but variation among various amendments was not significant. Maximum decrease of aflatoxin was observed in FYM (60.8%) followed by Gypsum (58.4%). It is worth to note amendments in soil not only reduced aflatoxin but enhanced the yield as well.