Mycoflora and naturally occurring mycotoxins in poultry feeds in Argentina.

The purpose of this work was to determine the mycoflora and mycotoxins natural incidence in poultry feeds from 2 factories in Río Cuarto, Córdoba. One hundred and thirty samples were taken from May/1996 to May/1997. The most dominant species isolated of poultry feed samples belonged to the genera Aspergillus spp 85% and Fusarium spp 70%. From Aspergillus genus eleven species were identified and A. flavus was the most frequent. Nine species were identified from the Fusarium genus and the predominant was F. moniliforme. Penicillium ranked third in the number of isolated cases. From this genus twelve species were collected of which P. brevicompactum (15%), P. restrictum (14%) and P. purpurogenum (12%) were the most common. The most significant mycotoxin from poultry feeds was aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) found in 48% of the samples, with levels ranging from 10 to 123 ng/g. For zearalenone (ZEA) the levels were 327 to 5, 850 ng/g and DON was not detected from the samples. Due to the fact that in Argentina there is little information about this topic, these data on poultry feeds in our region would be of worldwide interest.