Purpose:Compared with the standard protocol, three provisional critical control points (CCPs) in the conventional procedure were identified and assessed for mycotoxin contamination in the Job’s tears from small farms in Korea.
Methods:ELISA and HPLC/MS analysis were performed to detect and quantify myctoxins.
Results:Although various mycotoxins are present, the prevalence of deoxynivalenol (DON) or zearalenone (ZEN) was relatively high in the Job’s tears. In terms of drying condition, field drying in the conventional pathway was associated with more exposure to DON than heated air drying. Moreover, DON or ZEN levels in chaff were higher than in inner grain, suggesting that the hulling process as another CCP would reduce the DON or ZEN exposure. In particular, DON or ZEN levels in Job’s tears stored for protracted period without dehulling were very high, but a lower storage temperature of 12oC was not effective at reducing these mycotoxins significantly.
Significance: In this cases, inner grain were more contaminated with DON or ZEN than the chaff after protracted storage because surface fungi, which produce mycotoxin, can penetrate deep into grain with time. Heated air drying and non-protracted storage limited DON contamination in Job’s tears. More importantly, early dehulling process should be adopted to reduce the risk of exposure to DON or ZEN in post-harvest as an easy preventive action. This is kept monitored as a central CCP for safer production of Job’s tears before marketing from local farms (This work was carried out with the support of "Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science & Technology Development (Project No. PJ01093206)" Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea).