Citation:
M. Rivas Casado, D.J. Parsons, N. Magan, R.M. Weightman, P. Battilani, A. Pietric, A short geostatistical study of the three-dimensional spatial structure of
fumonisins in stored maize. Mycotoxin Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, February 2010, pp95-103
Abstract:
The heterogeneous three-dimensional spatial distribution of mycotoxins has
proven to be one of the main limitations for the design of effective sampling
protocols. Current sample collection protocols for mycotoxins have been designed
to estimate the mean concentration and fail to characterise the spatial
distribution of the mycotoxin concentration due to the aggregation of the
incremental samples. Geostatistical techniques have been successfully applied to
overcome similar problems in many research areas. However, little work has been
developed on the use of geostatistics for the design of sampling protocols for
mycotoxins. This paper focuses on the analysis of the two and three-dimensional
spatial structure of fumonisins B1 (FB1) and B2 (FB2) in maize in a bulk store
using a geostatistical approach and on how results help determine the number and
location of incremental samples to be collected. The spatial correlation between
FB1 and FB2, as well as between the number of kernels infected and the level of
contamination was investigated. For this purpose, a bed of maize was sampled at
different depths to generate a unique three-dimensional data set of FB1 and FB2.
The analysis found no clear evidence of spatial structure in either the two-
dimensional or three-dimensional analyses. The number of Fusarium infected
kernels was not a good indicator for the prediction of fumonisin concentration
and there was no spatial correlation between the concentrations of the two
fumonisins.
