Multi-Mycotoxin Contamination of Maize Silages in Flanders, Belgium: Monitoring Mycotoxin Levels from Seed to Feed

Maize silage, which in Europe is the main feed for dairy cattle in winter, can be contaminated by mycotoxins. Mycotoxigenic Fusarium spp. originating from field infections may survive in badly sealed silages or re-infect at the cutting edge during feed-out. In this way, mycotoxins produced in the field may persist during the silage process. In addition, typical silage fungi such as Penicillium spp. and Aspergillus spp. survive in silage conditions and produce mycotoxins. In this research, 56 maize silages in Flanders were sampled over the course of three years (2016–2018). The concentration of 22 different mycotoxins was investigated using a multi-mycotoxin liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method, and the presence of DNA of three Fusarium spp. (F. graminearum, F. culmorum and F. verticillioides) was analyzed in a selection of these samples using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Every maize silage contained at least two different mycotoxins. Nivalenol (NIV) and deoxynivalenol (DON) were the most prevalent (both in 97.7% of maize silages), followed by ENN B (88.7%). Concentrations often exceeded the EU recommendations for DON and zearalenone (ZEN), especially in 2017 (21.3% and 27.7% of the maize silages, respectively). No correlations were found between fungal DNA and mycotoxin concentrations. Furthermore, by ensiling maize with a known mycotoxin load in a net bag, the mycotoxin contamination could be monitored from seed to feed. Analysis of these net bag samples revealed that the average concentration of all detected mycotoxins decreased after fermentation. We hypothesize that mycotoxins are eluted, degraded, or adsorbed during fermentation, but certain badly preserved silages are prone to additional mycotoxin production during the stable phase due to oxygen ingression, leading to extremely high toxin levels.