Effect of cultivation and processing on Fusarium mycotoxins in malting barley

The study investigated the contamination of malting barley grain with mycotoxins of Fusarium during the process of growth and development of grain and its subsequent processing in the malting plant into manufactured beer. Attention was focused on their hygienic quality, zearalenone and deoxynivalenol content was determined by HPLC. None of the samples exceeded the legal limits. The experiment evaluated the influence of cultivar (Francin, Bojos), the effect of nitrogen fertilization rate and fungicide treatment. Francin appeared more resistant to ZEA occurrency, while Bojos was more resistant to DON occurency. Nitrogen fertilization rates of 80 and 110 kg/ha may have caused a higher susceptibility of the crop to Fusarium attack. The hypothesis that mycotoxin susceptibility would increase with increasing fertilization rate was not supported. The environment of the malt house may also have contributed to the increase in mycotoxin content. In the case of fungicide application, it cannot be clearly assessed whether it affected the mycotoxin content. The field experiment was adversely affected by bad weather. Differences (P < 0.05) were found when monitoring the ZEA and DON content of Bojos and Francin grain samples. The ZEA content of Bojos and Francin malt were not different (P > 0.05). Significant differences (P < 0.05) were found when monitoring the DON content of Bojos malt samples, the DON content of the Francin malt was comparable (P > 0.05). The Bojos beer samples were not different in ZEA and DON content (P > 0.05). For Francin beer, there were differences (P < 0.05).