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Peanuts, Corn May Have Help Against Mold

Posted on: Wednesday, 5 November 2003, 06:00 CST

By ELLIOTT MINOR

DAWSON, Ga. (AP) -- After more than 20 years of research, scientists believe they have a solution that could save peanuts and corn from aflatoxin, a destructive mold that can destroy millions in crops.

The U.S. peanut industry lost $37 million during a 1993 outbreak and $44 million two years later. Corn growers in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi lost from $85 million to $100 million during a 1998 outbreak.

Microbiologist Joe Dorner and other scientists at the Agriculture Department's National Peanut Research Laboratory have developed a control for aflatoxin that could reduce the mold by 70 percent to 90 percent in peanuts and help protect corn and other vulnerable crops.

"It's a good feeling to know that something you worked on could have benefits for folks in the peanut industry and ultimately corn or anything that could have a susceptibility to aflatoxin," Dorner said.

Dorner's agency, the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service, has granted an exclusive license to Circle One Global in Cuthbert to produce a patented product known as Afla-Guard, a biological control for aflatoxin.

If EPA approves Afla-Guard by December, as expected, Circle One would have a supply ready for the next growing season, said Dan Gay, the company's president.

The $20-per-acre application costs could be shared by growers and the companies that shell and store their peanuts, Gay said.

Aflatoxin is produced by two types of molds - Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus - that grow almost everywhere. Outbreaks occur when certain crops, such as peanuts, corn and tree nuts, are stressed by droughts.

Pure aflatoxin can be lethal and prolonged exposure to foods contaminated with lesser amounts can cause liver cancer.

David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, reported recently that aflatoxin and ricin, a castor bean extract, were among the poisons that Saddam Hussein's scientists had been studying for possible use as biological weapons.

The federal aflatoxin limit for peanuts consumed by humans is 20 parts per billion, the equivalent of a drop of water in a 21,700-gallon swimming pool. The peanut industry has adopted an even more stringent limit - 15 parts per billion.

U.S. crops are carefully screened for the toxin, but Dorner said people in developing countries often have to eat contaminated grain because it's all they have.

"It is a serious issue in those countries because they are consuming highly contaminated food," he said.

Dorner and a fellow scientist, Dick Cole, now retired, discovered a benign strain of Aspergillus flavus that supplants the harmful strain when applied in peanut fields.

Then they had to develop a way for farmers to apply the safe strain. They settled on shelled barley coated with the fungus that can be spread with existing farm equipment.

Through their years of research, they decided the best time to apply the fungus was June or early July, so the strain is firmly established by August when peanuts are especially vulnerable to heat and drought.

Dorner said Afla-Guard reduced aflatoxin by 92 percent during field trials in 1998, as the Southeast was entering a five-year drought.

The typical reduction was 70 to 90 percent for the first application, he said, adding that farmers can expect even better protection when they treat again the following year.

Besides reducing aflatoxin in the fields, Afla-Guard can also protect peanuts stored in warehouses, where a few contaminated peanuts or the wrong environmental conditions can cause it to proliferate, he said.

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On the Net:

National Peanut Research Laboratory

Circle One Global

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