Studying the effect of moisture content and temperature of corn stored in ware - houses and out – doors for production and deter mination of Aflatoxin B1

Abstract

This experiment was conducted at the drying and thrushing of maize cob mill . Ministry of Agriculture , Baghdad at the Mycotoxins Laboratory , Plant Protection Dep.. Coll . of Agriculture , Uni . of Baghdad. This study aimed to study the effect of moisture content and temperature of corn stored in ware- houses and out – doors for production and determination of Aflatoxin B1. 1200 Kg of corn crops were used for our experiment, and were divided each 600 Kg stored out – doors and in doors respectively . Samples had been taken for (7) months by using stratified random sampling method. Results showed that the production of Aflatoxin B1in ware –houses was higher than that of out – door storage in three periods ( the middle of December , the middle of January, the middle of February ) . The temperature effect was stronger than moisture content and the Aflatoxin B1 was increased with higher temperature between ( 13- 32.8) wareas the decrease moisture content of corn in out –door was higher than that of where –houses storage ratio (5.8) .
According to The above results , it was concluded that out- door storage was suitable for storing grain corn when compared to warehouse storage from the point of secretion of Aflatoxins. Whereas, the warehouse storage was better than out- door storage for moisture was being lost in local storage.