Occurrence of Mycotoxins in Grass and Whole-Crop Cereal Silages—A Farm Survey

Abstract

Mycotoxin incidence in forage may heavily affect the amount of toxins consumed by cattle. However, many studies have focused on mycotoxin occurrence in cereals and there are less studies of forages, particularly of grass silages. For determining the occurrence of mycotoxins in farm silages under Northern European conditions in Finland, 37 grass silage and 6 whole-crop cereal silage batches were analysed separately for surface, core and, if present, visibly mouldy spots. Mycotoxins were found in 92% of the samples. All mouldy samples contained mycotoxins. Beauvericin was the most common mycotoxin in grass silages and roquefortine C in whole-crop cereal silages. In mouldy samples, beauvericin, mycophenolic acid and roquefortine C were the most common mycotoxins in the grass silage and mycophenolic acid in the whole-crop cereal silage. Aflatoxins were not found in any of the samples. On average, all samples contained more than one type of mycotoxin. Concentrations of mycotoxins varied considerably from very low to very high values. The results of this survey indicate that silage-fed ruminants can be exposed to a broad range of mycotoxins. The absence of visible moulds does not always indicate mycotoxin-free feed. All moulded samples contained mycotoxins and some at very high concentrations, and they contained more different types of mycotoxins than samples without visible mould. Thus, feeding mouldy feeds to animals should be avoided.